Authors: Gregory Benford
Shibo gave him a wry sidelong glance. She sometimes fed him hints like this, enabling him to seem to have thought problems
through before they came up. It was a great help in slowly building a crew, Killeen thought, if the Cap’n happened to love
the Chief Executive Officer. He resisted the temptation to smile, sure that Cermo would guess his thoughts.
“Any moons?” he asked stonily.
“None I can see so far,” Shibo said. “There’s something else, though….”
Her slender arms stretched over the controls, calling forth functions Killeen could scarcely follow. Far out he saw a nugget
of bronzed hardness.
“A station.” She answered his unspoken question.
Cermo gasped. “A…a Chandelier?”
“I can’t make it out well enough. Could be.”
Killeen asked, “Can’t we see better? If we wait till we’re closer, could be dangerous.”
She thought, punched in an inquiry. “No, not this way. There’s another lensing system, though. Needs be hand-deployed on the
aft hull.”
“Do it,” Killeen ordered. Of Cermo he asked, “Who’s got suit duty?”
“Besen,” Cermo said. “But she’s young. I’d—”
“Use the assigned crew. Besen’s quick and smart.”
“Well, still, Cap’n—”
“They’ll never learn if they don’t face problems.” Killeen could remember his father saying exactly the same, refusing to
shield Killeen from tough jobs when he was a boy.
He studied the small bronze speck for a long moment, then asked Shibo to give the natural light view. In true human spectrum
the thing glittered with jewellike warmth, but under maximum magnification he could make out no structure.
Quite possibly this was a human outpost. Perhaps—Killeen felt a racing excitement—it was indeed an ancient Chandelier, those
legendary edifices of crystalline perfection.
He had once seen one through a ’scope on Snowglade, so far away that he could make out no detail. He had caught only the strange
glimmering presence of it, the suspicion of beauty lying just beyond perception. The possibility of finding
something manmade, hanging in this roiling vault of troubled sky, was enough to summon up his profound respect and awe for
the ancient masters who had made
Argo
and the even older Chandeliers. That he might see one closely—the thought made him lean toward the screen, as if to force
answers from it.
Besen arrived, a young woman of hard eyes and soft, sensuous mouth. She had a strict crewlike bearing and came to attention
immediately after entering the control vault. “Sir, I—”
Killeen’s son, Toby, dashed in through the hatchway before she could finish. He was gangly, a full head taller than Besen,
and panted heavily. “I—I heard there’s some hullwork needs done.”
Killeen blinked. His son was flushed with excitement, eyes dancing. But no Cap’n could allow such intrusions.
“Midshipman! You were not ordered here. I—”
“I heard Besen’s call. Just lemme—”
“You will stand at
attention
and shut
up!
”
“Dad, I just want—”
“Stand fast and belay your tongue-wagging. You are
crew
here, not my son—got that?”
“Uh…yeah…I…”
“Stand on your toes,” Killeen said firmly. He clasped his hands behind him and jutted his chin out at the undisciplined young
man his own boy had become.
“Wh-what?”
“Deaf, are you? You will stand on your toes until I am finished giving orders for Midshipwoman Besen. Then we will discuss
the proper punishment for you.”
Toby blinked, opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it. He swallowed and rose on his toes, hands at his side.
“Now,” Killeen said slowly to Besen, who had all this
time remained standing at attention, eyes ahead—though at the word
tongue-wagging
a quick grin had flashed across her face. “I believe Officer Shibo has instructions for your task. Perform it with all good
speed.”
Besen proved equal to the demands of finding and extruding from the ancient ship’s hull the needed opticals. They followed
her progress on the main monitor. Killeen gave Toby a dressing-down in front of Cermo and Shibo, knowing that through Cermo
the story would get through the ship faster than if he had played it over full comm. All the while Toby had to remain on his
toes, even after the ache began to twist his face with grimaces and sweat beaded on his brow. In this contest between father
and son there could be only one winner—Family legacy and the demands of the ship itself required that—but Toby held out as
long as he could. Finally, in the middle of a deliberately protracted lecture by Killeen on the necessity of following orders
exactly, Toby toppled over, crashing to the deck.
“Very good. Lesson finished,” Killeen said, and turned back to the main display screen.
Besen had adroitly arranged the fibery, translucent opticals, which were too delicate to be permanently exposed. She tilted
their platform so they could find the tiny glimmering planet that lay swaddled in the dusty arms of the star’s ecliptic plane.
Shibo brought up an image from it quickly. Killeen watched the watery light resolve, while Toby got up and
Lieutenant Cermo ordered him back to station. It had been a hard thing to do but Killeen was sure he was right, and his Ling
Aspect agreed. The inherent contradictions involved in running a crew that was also a Family demanded that difficult moments
not be avoided.
“What…what’s that?” Cermo asked, forgetting that it was a good rule never to question a Cap’n. Killeen let it pass, because
he could well have asked the same question.
Against a mottled background hung a curious pearly thing, a disk penetrated at its center by a thick rod. Strange extrusions
pointed from the rod at odd angles. Instinctively Killeen knew it was no Chandelier. It had none of the legendary majesty
and lustrous webbed beauty.
“Mechwork, could be,” he said.
Shibo nodded. “It circles above the same spot on the planet.”
“Is there some way we can approach the planet, keeping this thing always on the other side?” Killeen asked.
He still had only a dim comprehension of orbital mechanics. His Arthur Aspect had shown him many moving displays of ships
and stars, but little of it had stuck. Such matters were far divorced from the experience of a man who had lived by running
and maneuvering on scarred plains.
Once, when Killeen had asked if a ship could orbit permanently over a planet’s pole, Ling had laughed at him—an odd sensation,
for the tinny voice seemed to bring forth echoes of other Aspects Killeen had not summoned up. It had taken him a while to
see that such an orbit was impossible. Gravity would tug down the unmoving ship.
“I can try for that in the close approach. But even now this thing could have seen us.”
“We will avoid it then, Officer Shibo. Give me a canted orbit, so this satellite can’t see us well.”
Shibo nodded, but by her quick, glinting eyes he knew
she understood his true thoughts. Soon he had to decide whether they would pause in this system at all. The Mantis, that frosty
machine intelligence of Snowglade, had set them on this course. But if the planet ahead proved to be mechrun, Killeen would
take them out of the system as swiftly as he could. But where was the crucial choice to be made? No experience or Family lore
told him how to decide, or even when.
He left the control vault and walked through the
Argo’
s tight-wound spiral corridors. Inspections awaited, and he took his time with them. He kept his pace measured, not letting
his interior fever of speculation and doubt reveal itself, so that passing crew would see their Cap’n moving with an unconcerned
air.
There was a gathering, humming expectancy in the air as they plunged toward their target star. Soon they would learn whether
they came to a paradise or to another mech-run world. The planet’s strange, discolored face had given him no answers, and
he would have to deflect questions from Family members who so desperately wanted assurances.
Walking through a side corridor, he heard a faint scrabbling noise from an air duct. Instantly he sprang up, un-slipped the
grille, and peered inside. Nothing.
The sound, like small feet scrambling away, faded. A micromech, certainly.
Try as they might, the crew had never destroyed all the small mechs left in the
Argo
by the Mantis. The remaining machines were almost certainly unimportant, delegated to do small repairs and cleaning. Still,
their presence bothered Killeen. He knew how much intelligence could be carried in a fingernail’s width; after all, the chips
lodged along his spine held whole personalities. What were even such small mechs capable of doing?
He had no way of knowing. There had been disturbing incidents
during the voyage, when problems mysteriously cleared up. Killeen had never known whether the ship had repaired itself with
deep, hidden subsystems, or whether the micromechs were at work, following their own purposes.
No Cap’n liked to have his ship at the control of anyone but himself, and Killeen could never rest comfortably until all the
micromechs were gone. But short of some drastic remedy, he saw no way to rid himself of these nuisances.
Vexed, he took a moment for himself and stopped at a small side pocket just off the spiral corridor. Here was the only room
in
Argo
devoted solely to honoring their link to antiquity. It was large enough for ceremonies such as marriages or deaths, which
Killeen had duly performed in the last two years, and dominated by two iron-dark slabs on two walls.
These were the Legacies,
Argo’
s computer memories said. They were inscribed with spidery impressions that glinted in all colors if a light shone upon them.
A digital language, clearly, though couched in terms even the
Argo
programs could not unravel. The ship had severe instructions to preserve these tablets, embedded in the ceramo-walls, against
all depredations. Clearly here was some incomprehensible clue to the origin of humans at the Center, and perhaps much else—but
Killeen had no idea how to pursue this avenue.
He came here, instead, to sit on a simple bench and think. The looming, somber presence of the twin-slab Legacies gave him
a curiously calming sensation of a firm link to a human past unknown and yet magnificent. In ancient days humans had built
ships like this, plied the thin currents between suns, and lived well, free of the grinding presence of vastly superior beings.
Killeen envied the people of that time. He paused now to run his palms over the smooth surface of the Legacies, as if
some fragment of ageold vision and wisdom could seep into him.
Now that the problems of Cap’ncy beset him, he thought often of Abraham and all those from times before. They had led the
grudging retreat before the mechs. They had given everything.
To Killeen and the Bishops fate had granted a shred of hope. A fresh world, new visions. He could liberate his people or he
could lose their last gamble.
And this opportunity had come just one bare generation late. Abraham would have known what to do now. Abraham had been a natural
leader. His sunbrowned, easy air had commanded without visible effort. Killeen missed his father far more than he had in the
days after Abraham’s disappearance at the Calamity when Citadel Bishop fell. Time and again he had wondered what his father
would have done….
He sighed and got to his feet. His hand brushed the Legacies once more. Then he turned and left, the mottled brown face of
the nearby planet framed in his right eye, so that he could study new pictures as they arrived.
He was mulling over this vision so deeply that he didn’t hear the running feet in the spiral corridor. A body slammed into
his shoulder and spun him around.
He fetched up against the wall, the wind knocked out of him. His son peered into his face. “You all right, Dad?”
“I…didn’t hear…you coming.”
Besen and three others came running up, their hot pursuit of Toby brought to a halt as they saw the Cap’n.
“We were just, y’know, playin’ a li’l kickball,” Toby said sheepishly, holding up a small red sphere.
“It’s lots fun, on the axis,” another boy said.
“Yeasay, funner with low grav,” Besen put in. Her eyes were zesty and bright.
Killeen nodded. “Glad you’re keeping your legs in
shape,” he said. A meaningful glance at the others prompted them to leave him alone with Toby.
“You steamed ’bout what happened in the control vault?”
Toby chewed at his lip, conflict warring in his face. “Don’t see why you had to roust me.”
“I won’t give you the discipline lecture, but—”
“Glad ’bout
that
. Been hearin’ nothin’
but
that from you.”
“You haven’t given me much choice.”
“And you aren’t givin’
me
much chance.”
“How you figure?”
Toby shrugged irritably. “Ridin’ me alla time.”
“Only when you force me.”
“Look, I’m just tryin’, that’s all.”
“Trying too hard, maybe.”
“I’m tired out from just sittin’. Wanna
do
somethin’.”
“Only when you’re ordered.”
“That’s it? No—”
“And you’ll belay your gab when I give you an order, too.”
Toby’s lip curled. “That’s your old Ling Aspect talkin’, right? What’s ‘belay’ mean?”
“Means
stop
. And my Aspects are—”
“Ever since you got it, seems like
it’s
givin’ the orders.”
“I take advice, certainly—”
“Seems like some old fart’s runnin’
Argo
, not my dad.”
“I keep my Aspects under control.” Killeen heard his voice, stiff and formal, and made himself say more warmly, “You know
what it’s like sometimes, though. You’ve had two Faces now for—what?—a year?”
Toby nodded. “I got ’em runnin’ okay.”
“I’m sure you do. They ride easy?”
“Pretty near. They give me tech stuff, mostly.”
“But you can see, then, how you look at some things differently.”
“Get tired, just sittin’ ’round tryin’ to fix stuff.”