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Liza turned her hands up helplessly. It s the same girl, Claudi
Melnik. But her visions
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correlate well with old reports of the starstream consciousness.
Thornekan cursed under his breath. I haven t heard of a contact like that in
the last forty years. Why would it start up again now? And why with
our ship? He frowned when Liza stared back at him mutely. He glanced at
his other officers. Whether to believe it or not: it was his call, of course.
But how could he make a judgment on the basis of such flimsy evidence?
And yet, if he went for the escape for safety for the ship would he be putting
a whole planet at risk? Comments? he growled.
The navigator tapped the table. We ll need a go/no-go in three days.
Aside from that I
dunno, skipper.
Understood. Len?
His first officer scratched his sideburn grimly. Let s not cut out any
options we don t have to. I suggest we tell the colonists we re not sure. Tell
them there might be another change. Tell them anything just not that the
Throgs are already here. We don t want a panic.
But we do want them prepared, if it comes to that.
Len Oleson frowned. Prepared? Is any of us prepared? I m sure as hell not.
Yes, well Thornekan took a deep breath as he turned to stare at
the external holo, where the liquid light of the passing starstream swirled
by as dreamy clouds and blurry stars.
No, he supposed, none of them was really prepared to meet the Throgs. Not
psychologically, and certainly not militarily.
Charity was for all practical purposes unarmed. If the unthinkable happened
and they met Karthrogen, and the enemy behaved in typical Throg manner,
Charity wouldn t last five minutes.
Myra, did you have this much time to think
& ?
He turned back. All right. We ll meet with the passengers. But in the
meantime, I want more options, especially if we stay in the groove. Len,
anything that could help us evade them.
It was a faint hope. It wasn t impossible to evade something in
the starstream, but it was difficult; and the Karthrogen were good, very
good, at tracking targets.
Aye, skipper. The first officer didn t sound too hopeful, either.
Liza, I ll be wanting a talk with the Melnik girl.
She scowled. Captain, the system recommends we do not question the girl.
And just why the hell not?
Liza s lips pressed thin. Her teacher believes she has, quote,
unusual sensitivities,
unquote, which might be extremely fragile at the present time. It is trying
to understand her ability to sense these things and says if we interfere, we
might ruin it instead of getting what we want.
Terrific. The system knows best, huh?
That s basically what it says.
Thornekan shook his head. We ll see about that. He rubbed his hands together
and blew into them. Okay, we ll play its game for a little while longer. You
keep doing what you can.
Aye, aye.
And I guess I ll just have to figure out what to say to our passengers. I
know I sure as hell wouldn t buy the crap we re about to hand them. Would any
of you?
There was, wisely, no answer from any of the officers.
John Melnik had a new partner on the log cabin building project. During a
reshuffling of the survival training classes, his former partner Ti
had been shifted over to the alternative energy workshop. John had been
asked to break in the new man on the work in progress. The new man had
turned out to be the Im kek he had met briefly before. It made John a
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little uncomfortable, though he tried hard not to show it. John Melnik felt
that all sentients, Human or otherwise, were entitled to fair and equal
treatment; but he hadn t personally been around that many of
them non-Humans, that is and the truth was, it was a little hard to get used
to their appearance, and their manner and smells.
Not that Roti Wexx xx smelled particularly bad, or even had disturbing
manners; Roti was just different, that was all. Im keks were still fairly rare
around the Habitat, coming as they did from a recently contacted world. John
knew that Im keks were a lot smarter than they looked, but it was something he
had to keep reminding himself every time he glanced up at the lanky, grinning,
vacant-eyed, minty-scented Wexx xx. They d had more than a little
trouble communicating. That was probably as much John s fault as Roti s,
except well, since, after all, this was primarily a Human ship, he would have
thought that the Im kek might have made a greater effort to learn the local
speech, as it were.
Roti, he said, pointing down to where two pseudologs overlapped in
a decidedly imperfect fashion, we ve got to make that joint snug. See there,
how you haven t cut enough bite out from under the top log?
Roti looked puzzled. He grinned absently. Bite? Dinner break?
No no!
The joint
, Roti. Look underneath. John lifted the end of the log and indicated the
notch. See? You need to hollow it out more.
Ah! With this? Roti held up the carving tool.
Right! Now, help me turn it over. John grunted as he struggled to roll the
log off onto the work surface.
Help me with it, Roti!
Sorry! Sorry! Help, yes. Roti squatted down and began trying to whittle out
the uneven indentation.
No wait
! John dropped the end of the log with a grunt. Not yet! We ve
got to get it turned over
. Help me turn it.
Sorry! Sorry! Flustered, Roti put down the tool, and then with his massive
hands assisted
John in rolling the log onto the work surface. He patted it and
picked up the blade again.
Now?
Yes. Now.
Roti hacked away at the spot, digging the notch deeper. John
watched in silence as the chips flew. After a minute Roti paused and
looked up at John. His eyes, for once, seemed to
focus on John s. I m sorry, you know sorry. I know it s &
frustrating
& for you. I try. I try.
This is all so new to me.
John immediately felt guilty. Who was he to have judged this poor
Im kek about being slow to learn? It certainly hadn t been easy for him the
first time he d tried any of this stuff. But he knew it was impossible to
hide his emotions from the Im kek; to Roti s kind, Humans positively
radiated emotion.
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