Before he left for the ship with Narrow Leg, Keff collected Tall Eyebrow and the others. Smooth Hand, seeing that all were now on fire to discuss exchanges with the Central Worlds, adjourned the meeting. Tall Eyebrow seemed as if he welcomed the rescue. All four outworlders were grateful to leave, but had to promise to appear in the great hall again in the morning to continue the discussion on citizenship. Narrow Leg led Keff and the Ozranians out of the damp hall and into what was left of the day. It had been raining hard. The air still smelled like a gym locker, but Keff took a deep breath, glad to expand his lungs.
Sunshine glittered on the ornamental paving surrounding the Main Bog building, picking up light from bright specks of mica or quartz. The sculpted, multicolored granitelike rock felt rough and uneven under his boot soles, but the visual effect was one of undulating ocean waves, most soothing to the eye. Design was important to the Cridi. Keff appreciated their painstaking attention to detail. Plants sprouted out of pillar tops and along the guardrails of ramps. Tall buildings containing hundreds of apartment flats poked up through the thick trees, looking as though they had evolved organically themselves. Since all Cridi had access to Core power and therefore could fly, entrances to the flats were as likely to be up as down: on protruding ledges of smooth stone, in sculpted baskets like giant nests, carved like a child's slide through a miniature waterfall. Mosaics seemed to have been formed by stratification in the rock walls instead of being imposed upon them by artistic hands. Huge golden insects with multiple wings like living jewels hovered over V-shaped blossoms in the many planters, sipping nectar. Keff half-expected one of the Cridi to dart out a long tongue and devour one.
Long Hand looked around her, nodding approvingly. Small Spot just sat down on the sidewalk with his long legs collapsing under him, turning his amulet, a long, thin fingertrap, between his hands. Tall Eyebrow seemed drawn and tired. His skin looked dull amid all the bright stonework.
"How has it been going?" Keff asked him in Standard, once they were out of earshot of the other delegates. Clusters of Cridi hung around the pillared entrance, signing to one another, but more than one cast a curious eye toward the strangers.
"I feel lost," the Frog Prince replied in the human tongue, with a glance at Narrow Leg. The elder Cridi up-nodded politely, after understanding that they were having a private conversation, and turned his head the other way. Keff blessed the old one's tact.
"Why?" Keff asked Tall Eyebrow.
"Technology so far beyond ours," he replied, his small face screwed up, searching for the correct words. "I am at disadvantage to show what my people have done."
"Technology isn't everything," Keff said, soothingly. "You have experience and intelligence. You have overcome incredible obstacles to survive. You've rejuvenated a planet."
"And what is that here?" Tall Eyebrow turned his palms upward. "Nothing."
He paused at the edge of the pavement and looked up and down the main thoroughfare passing the Main Bog of Greedeek, the Cridi capital city. It had been raining again, and the lanes ran with multiple streams of muddy water. Around him, delegates were taking leave of one another, gliding out or upward toward their homes. Keff could tell that the Frog Prince wished he wasn't groundbound. The taste of power over the last two years on Ozran had spoiled the globe-frog. On the other hand, the mudflow was daunting even to a human. Keff looked down and took a deep breath before raising a foot over the ooze. Tall Eyebrow, too, paused, reaching for his amulet. When he realized it wouldn't work, he glanced up at Keff with a shamefaced expression. Neither of them wanted to test the depth of the viscous goo.
"Here goes anyhow," he said. "I'd better go first."
"Power surge coming up in your direction," Carialle said. At the same time, Keff felt his feet arrested before they sank into the greeny-black mud. His right foot hovered, supported a few centimeters above the surface. He drew his left foot forward. The invisible floor beneath him held.
A shrill whistle of laughter came from behind them. Big Eyes was lifting them and herself, using her power circuitry.
"Technology is something," Tall Eyebrow said, gloomily.
"Go on, go on," the female gestured. "Wish to come to ship."
Her father, who had halted when he found that the others had dropped behind, turned to see what was going on.
"How rude of you, daughter," he said. His enormously long fingers folded together.
"I apologize," Narrow Leg signed quickly. "I forgot. I have not met outworlders before. I forgot you," and he indicated Keff, mainly to save Tall Eyebrow embarrassment, "would not have our advantages."
"Quite all right," Keff said, politely. "Your daughter has resc—offered her kind hospitality."
"You mean she has made herself the center of attention," Narrow Leg signed, with a humorous sigh. "Do you think it is easy, after seven children, to find one who stands out so?"
"I think she would stand out," Tall Eyebrow signed, without looking at either of them, "if there were a million children."
The female let out a tinkling laugh, and put her long fingertips on Tall Eyebrow's arm.
"Gallant one," she said, when he raised his head. They looked deeply at one another for a long moment. Grinning fit to pop his jaw, Keff held his breath. Big Eyes tented her fingertips and thumbtips together and dipped her chin toward them. "You're very kind. I am glad you came home to Cridi. Come, let us see the spaceship."
Tall Eyebrow, buoyed on borrowed power and love, strode proudly in the direction of the landing field with Big Eyes beside him.
"This is most impressive," Tad Pole said over and over again, as he stumped about the main cabin of Carialle's ship. "Most impressive."
Possessed of great height for a Cridi, he was able to see over the edges of the consoles from the floor. When he had paced from the food processor to the view tank about a dozen times, he raised himself on a surge of power and floated. Carialle noted the slight surges of power that rose around the old frog's form as he levitated. The homeworld Cridi had such a subtle command of their power system: as different from the Core of Ozran as a scalpel to a sledgehammer. The Cridi generators were, Carialle estimated, as much as five times more powerful. Yet with all the use the locals made of the system, the local environment seemed to show no signs of deterioration or other ill effects. She would have to question Narrow Leg on the technology when he was finished with his tour. She manifested her frog image next to him over the navigation station to describe what he was looking at.
"Thank you for the compliments, gentle-male. This indicates the benchmarking codes for this sector," she said, activating the screen to show Cridi's star in relation to the nearest blue lines. "Sector A is considered galactic center, and the others radiate outward from it."
Tad Pole had accepted the holograph without question, even addressing it directly as if it was a new acquaintance. He pointed at the numerals in the corner of the image.
"So this is where Cridi lies in your reckoning? What does this designation mean?" he asked.
Keff, with the help of IT, tried to render the musical notes for the X, Y, and Z axes. Then he whistled it, and shook his head at himself.
"Oh, fuss and bother," he said. "I can't make an accurate tone when it's important. Well, that's what IT is for." He rummaged around in an instrument locker and came out with the small external speaker that he wore when translation of an alien language was beyond his vocal capabilities. He hooked it into the IT module he wore on his chest next to Carialle's camera eye. "In Sector P, X=248.9, Y=1630.23, Z=876."
"This means nine-tenths?" Narrow Leg asked, pointing to one of the characters, and voiced a very high minor that indicated the negative logarithm.
That led to a quick lesson in Standard decimal notation, and the explanation of Arabic versus Roman numerals, which more closely approximated the Cridi system of written notation. Tad Pole, a quick learner, nodded his head several times appreciatively.
"It is quick and less cumbersome for a screen of formulae," he said. "Very neat. It may serve as your first import to our world. Although I do not want my spacers to become lazy, having an easy way to express formulae."
"None find it easy to serve Narrow Leg," Big Eyes said, from the weight bench, where she sat curled up with her hands around her thin knees, drawing her red cloak closely against her body. Tall Eyebrow hunched beside her, eyes wide like a wary animal. "He works everyone too hard. Himself, too."
"I do nothing unnecessary," the lean, old male admonished his unruly child. "Should like to have documents on numeric system."
"Gladly," Keff signed.
"I will recommend partnership between human organization and Cridi," Narrow Leg continued. "Among those who are of sense, I carry weight." He thumped his chest proudly.
Turning to Tall Eyebrow, he asked, "What do you call the other?" He circled a forefinger uncertainly. The Ozranian sat up very straight and put his hand before his face.
"The One Who Watches From Behind the Walls," Tall Eyebrow signed, and spoke her name, "Carialle."
"Carialle," Narrow Leg said. "I thank you for my tour. Now we are curious about you. You do not really look like one of us, do you, in spite of this flat Cridi which follows me like a friend?"
"No," Carialle said, signing through the image. "I resemble Keff, but I am a female of our species." The white wall beside the visitor displayed images of men and women from infancy to old age. She erased all the others and let the adult female image remain, clothing it in the usual garb worn by her Lady Fair holo. "This is how I usually represent myself, but I am not mobile on two legs as Keff is." Another series of images followed, beginning with a human body, surrounding it in a protective shell, then circuitry and life support tubes, moving outward through every layer until the viewer's eye was outside the titanium pillar beside which Keff was standing. "This ship is my body. I see what is outside with video eyes," she showed some examples of cameras, "and hear with many different kinds of ears." The visitors blinked through a series of images of audio transmitters and receivers, down to the miniaturized implant that Keff wore.
"So different. So very different," Narrow Leg said, awed. "I am glad you have come to our world."
"But you came here for a purpose," Carialle said, resuming her frog image. "I'm sending for data regarding observations on storms and other anomalies in space with special attention to this sector. Keff, I'm piggybacking a message to Simeon to pick up gossip from other ships that have been in this area recently. He'll give us the unofficial scuttle if there's nothing in the records. Watch now."
On the holoview over the main console, Carialle showed the view from the camera over the hatch following the second of her four message rockets. Keff urged Narrow Leg to float as closely as he wanted to the holographic image. The ship's skin peeled back, and the bracket levered the little rocket back, then upright like a child sitting up in bed. An inner hatch closed underneath its tailfins, protecting the other probes from backfire. Carialle sent a command, and the small ring of engines ignited, forming a cushion of fire that elongated into a red tongue as the probe lifted skyward. Carialle changed to another camera view that followed the white-hot dot up through the sky as it gained velocity. It was soon lost from sight.
"It will take a few weeks for the message to get to the outpost of the Central Worlds," Carialle said. "I hope you can put up with us that long."
"It would be our honor, gentle-female. I enjoyed that very much," Narrow Leg said, nodding thoughtfully. "Very much indeed. And now," he said, recovering his good humor and energy. "You must come to see my ship."
"I felt long ago that we must not lose the heritage of ages," Narrow Leg said as he pointed out features of the slender ship on the launch pad. "Space is important. I am old. I remember when the failures began. No one thought anything of it, but when they continued, most gave up all hope. Some saw it as a sign to cease travel into space. Our planet's children, the colonies, had forsaken us, and no project could succeed. Others did not agree. We launched, but the ships exploded just beyond atmosphere, or disappeared before passing the beacons at the edge of our system. I was part of those projects, and I said we should not stop. It has taken me twelve years to achieve funding for this ship, and I will not let anything stop us. The fourth time shall be fortunate."
Keff whistled at the sleek lines of the small ship. As Carialle had said, all the Cridi craft seemed to be about one-sixth to one-third scale to human ships, yet personal quarters were much larger in proportion. Cridi seemed to like a fair bit of headroom. Keff found he was slouching to pass in and out of hatchways, but not actually stooping. Narrow Leg's technology was based upon modular replacements, a notion handed down through the generations to preserve the precious metals and radioactives. Stacks of identical bulkhead panels, numbered in the Cridi way, lay in heaps around the finished craft.
"You have enough here to make another couple of ships," Keff said, kicking one skid.
"One and half," Narrow Leg said. "These plates are designed to fit in over 120 different positions on the craft, both inside and outside. Similar care has been taken with many other components. All circuit boards are the same size, and all plugs, too."
"Are you getting this, Cari?" Keff asked, turning around in a full circle and aiming his transmitter up and down to cover everything.
"Sure am," Carialle said. "It is beautiful. If this is everything it looks like, all hopes Central Worlds has always had for a precisely equal race are achieved. This is as advanced as any CW ship, and it sounds like they've been splitting space for as long as we have, but they've evolved independently. I feel vindicated, and I'm even more glad we were the ones to see this. The diplomacy wonks wouldn't give us due credit when they got back from the initial contact mission. When will she be ready to launch?"
Keff relayed the question. Narrow Leg let out a piping laugh.
"When the bureaucrats let me," he said. "They are still arguing about who gets credit for what."
The party reentered the hydroponics section, the first part they had visited upon entering the ship. Small Spot had taken a great fancy to the room, arranged like a jungle garden around a large central bath, and decided he needed to see no more than that. He stood up when Tall Eyebrow appeared.
"How quiet it is in here," Long Hand said, coming in behind. Keff listened. She was right. The incessant peeping and chirping of the technicians could not be heard once the enameled hatch slid shut.
"This is worth recording, senior," Small Spot signed enthusiastically. "Someday, when we are traveling the stars, I should like a room of plants with a pool at its heart."
"Thank you for compliment," Big Eyes signed. "This is my design." Touching Tall Eyebrow's hand, she drew him over to see special details. "It is meant to be quiet during travel. Engine noise absorbed through three layers of paneling. Vibration cut up to 88 percent. Gives mental peace."
"Very impressive," Keff said.
"One has far to go," Narrow Leg added, shaking his old head. "One must be sane when arriving."
"Keff must tell you of the game," Tall Eyebrow said, with enthusiasm. "How humans keep spirit in long transit."
"Uh-oh," Carialle said in Keff's ear. "This is one part I am excising from the record we are bringing back to Xeno. They'll court-martial us, or something, if we spread Myths and Legend to another species. Probably violates a hundred non-interference directives."
Keff, smiling fixedly, bowed to Narrow Leg and his daughter. "I'd be happy to talk about it some time. We have other modifications for comfort that I could offer."
"Gladly received," Narrow Leg said. "I might have forgotten refinements in fifty years."
"Meanwhile, tell me about your propulsion system."
"Gladly," the old one said. He led the way out of the silent chamber with Small Spot reluctantly tagging along behind. The engineering section was the farthest aft, behind cargo storage and more crew quarters.
"I intend this ship to last. It has every fail-safe for survival and ultimate utility. You will see the controls here exactly duplicate those in the command center," he began, but got no farther. A cluster of Cridi security burst into the chamber. Keff froze in place, his muscles held by an invisible suit of armor. Big Voice shouldered his way past the guards and stood with his hands clenched before Narrow Leg.
"The council does not approve of allowing an outworlder on this ship," he signed furiously, interspersing his gestures with angry cheeps of diminishing value equations.
"But it is of great worth to have them here," Narrow Leg said, waving a gentle hand. "Until the day we may fly to the Central Worlds in our own ships and show ourselves, this is the only way they can bring back word. Keff is viewing all for Carialle, and she makes a record."
"He's good," Carialle said.
"Yep," Keff murmured. "I'm glad he's on our side."
"Plus," Narrow Leg chirped, having carried on his argument with Big Voice while Keff and Carialle were conferring, "there is undoubtedly little that they do not already know about the theory of space travel. I have requested access to the archives myself. If we preceded them to Sky Clear it was by a few hundred years, that was all. And," he added with fierce stabbings of his remarkably long forefinger in Big Voice's chest, "they have kept up their space program, while we have allowed setbacks to keep us confined here. All this is in our own people's writing. You would do well to read the documentation."
"Setbacks?" Big Voice said. "Do you designate the overload of planetary Core 103 years ago a setback? Do you call the apocalyptic crash of poorly made colony ship of 85x10 years ago a setback?"
"That was first experiment with portable Cores," Big Eyes whispered to Tall Eyebrow and Keff.
"Four x 102 years of previously successful space exploration brought to halt by disaster after disaster? Attempts to reconnect with former colonies have only begun in last 102 years!" Big Voice stopped, out of breath, to pant angrily.
"We now have open space to meet and interact with a people who were not hampered by constant gaps in space research," Narrow Leg said, without heat.
"This sharing will result in a loss of profit for Cridi industry," Big Voice said, standing his ground. "We will not develop things on our own as we should."
Narrow Leg turned to Keff. "Do all Central Worlds colonies have space travel?"
"Well, no," Keff said. "We require a certain technological and social level to be reached before they can have full membership, but they don't necessarily have to have evolved interstellar travel."
"Don't you see?" Narrow Leg said, turning back to the angry councillor. "This could open up your market to other peoples."
"You'll have to make things larger, though," Keff said, trying out a little exponent humor using IT to describe the proportions between Cridi and humans.
Big Voice was not mollified. "The council will discuss this matter thoroughly and give you their answer." He spun on his flat foot and marched out. The guards, uncertainly, lowered their circuit-covered hands and followed.
"Oh, good," Big Eyes signed behind her fellow councillor's departure. "Then we have years to talk about this before he comes back."
Narrow Leg shook his head wearily. "The fellow's a stone—gets set in one place and never moves again."
"What have your people done in space without the Core?" Keff asked.
"Small Core onboard," Narrow Leg said, and his musical whistling described formulae, circuitry, and elemental weights. "It runs on reserve fuel, serves few Cridi intensively for a time until new Core is built on new world. Until then, we walk in mud." His eyes twinkled as a few of the crew-frogs running tests in the engine room caught his signs and shuddered.
"There, you see?" Carialle said, noting their reactions through Keff's body-camera. "Tell Tall Eyebrow he is a hero in spite of his clunky amulet. None of the homeworld Cridi want to go through what his people did."
Keff, careful to make certain Big Eyes saw his signs, relayed Carialle's message to the Frog Prince. The praise made him glow and stand up straighter, especially when the female stared at him with open admiration. Narrow Leg caught Keff's eye behind the two younger Cridi's backs, and up-nodded wisely.
The message rocket streaked out of the system, shedding a burst of glowing electrons as it hurtled through the heliopause. Its passage attracted the attention of a raider ship lying concealed in the asteroid belt just inside the system's invisible barrier.
"Telemetry?" the ship's captain demanded. She was a lean woman with black hair and a thin nose and chin.
"From the reptiles," the navigator confirmed. He stretched out a wing-finger to extrapolate the path of the rocket from its source. He adjusted the computer screen to another view. The second planet had moved along its orbit, but the point of origin based on its current velocity was positive. "Confirmed. It came off the Slime planet."
"Get it," the captain said.
The pilot glanced over his shoulder nervously at her, but he applied thrust while bringing the cranky old drives on-line. The ship decanted from the hollow asteroid and gave chase.
Without looking away from the navigation screen, the captain tilted her head toward the copilot, who acted as communications officer and navigator.
"Send a message to the other ships. Alex is closer, but Autumn's engines are better."
The Thelerie officer nodded. The captain leaned closer, as if willing her ship to greater velocity. They couldn't let the probe get away. The small rocket had a good head start. It would be a miracle if they caught up with it, flying on their rackety old engines. The captain felt the vibration through her feet, sensing each time that connections missed. She was frustrated. There was never time to make the repairs correctly. They never had the right parts. Now, when it was vital for the engines to perform perfectly, they'd lose security in the system because no one had done a tune-up. The ship shuddered and groaned. Suddenly, the cabin went black except for the screens. The captain clutched for something solid to hang on to. The internal stabilizers cut out for a moment, and her wrists were twisted painfully.
"What happened?" she demanded. Her arms hurt, but she didn't let go.
"Cohiro says he's diverting all nonessential power to thrusters," the Thelerie reported.
The captain relaxed, glad her face was hidden by the dark. "Maximum speed, then," she said.
On the screen, the little rocket was a white dot, growing slowly into a dash.
"Can we get near enough to capture it with the tractor?" she asked.
"Not unless we slow it down," her pilot said. Over his shoulder, the captain could see the gauges. They were increasing in speed, but so was the probe.
"Then blast it," the captain said. She braced herself. The whole deck shook as more power was drained away from life support, this time for the weapons.
The white dash ahead of them shuddered slightly, but kept flying. It had slowed down just a bit. The captain urged her ship forward.
"Damaged it slightly," the Thelerie said. "We may catch it now."
The raider homed in on its prey. The captain stared at the streak, feeling her heart pound as it grew larger and larger.
"We're on it," she said. "Prepare to activate tractor."
"Aye, sir," said voices in the dark.
The ship drew up on the probe. The captain watched her screens, seeing the numbers shrink. Closer. Closer.
"Now!" the captain cried. The ship groaned again as power diverted to the tractor ball. "Do you have it?"
"No, sir," the Thelerie said. "I'm trying again."
"Maximum velocity," cried the pilot's voice. "Steady. Steady." The small streak gained detail. The captain could almost count the probe's tail fins.
"Grab it!" the captain ordered.
"I have a lock on it!" the Thelerie announced, just as all the lights went down. Loud grinding echoed through the walls. The captain was thrown to the floor against the backs of the pilot couches. Suddenly, the cabin lights came up again, and a siren wailed under the floors.
"Engines failed," the pilot said apologetically. The crew groaned. The captain pulled herself to her feet.
"Can we catch it?" she said, staring at the screen. The streak had dimmed to a small spot. It gained velocity as it flew, shrinking out of sight.
"No, sir. We've blown half a dozen power connections. Can't go anywhere at all until it's fixed."
"Damn," the captain said, fervently. "Call Alex. Have him come and give us a tow back to the base. Call Autumn to chase . . . never mind. She'd never catch it. We'll have to put out a general message for any crew on its path to intercept it. Can we at least tell Mirina where it's going?"
"It's definitely heading toward Central Worlds, sir," said the pilot, after a glimpse at the navigator's screen. "That's all I can tell you."
The captain sighed heavily. "Give me an open channel. I'd better send right away. Bad news doesn't improve with waiting."