The Ship Who Saved the Worlds

by Anne McCaffrey

  "Farewell, friends," Chaumel said, assisting the tall girl down the ramp and onto his chariot. "We look forward to your return."

  "So do we," Keff said, waving. The chair flew to a safe distance and settled down to observe the ship's takeoff.

  "They do make rather a handsome couple," Carialle said. "I'd like to paint them a big double portrait as a wedding present. Confound their combination of primrose and silver—that's going to be tricky to balance. Hmm, an amber background, perhaps cognac amber would do it."

  Keff turned and walked inside the main cabin. The airlock slid shut behind him, and he heard the groaning of the motor bringing the outer ramp up flush against the bulkhead. The brawn clapped his hands together in glee.

  "Wait until we tell Simeon and the Xeno boffins about the Frog Prince and his tadpole courtiers on the Planet of Wizards," Keff gloated, settling into his crash-couch and putting his feet up on the console. He intertwined his hands behind his head. "Ah! We will be the talk of SSS-900, and every other space station for a hundred trillion klicks!"

  "I can't wait to spread the word myself," Carialle said with satisfaction as she engaged engines and they lifted off into atmosphere. "We did it! We may be considered the screwball crew, but we're the ones that get the results in the end. . . . Oh damn!"

  "What's wrong?" Keff asked, sitting up, alarmed.

  Carialle's Lady Fair image appeared on the screen, her face drawn into woeful lines.

  "I forgot about the Inspector General!"

  The Ship Errant

  To Val and Rick

  with love

  Preface

  To: Dr. Sennet Maxwell-Corey

  Inspector General

  Central Worlds Administration

  From: Commander Lavon Muller-Danes

  Alien Outreach Department

  A transmission has been received by this office from RNJ-599, known locally as Ozran, requesting transportation of representatives of its government to its homeworld.

  I have before me your memo asking me to inform you if such an eventuality arose. While the CK-963 brain/brawn team is, to say the least, unorthodox in its methods, it is effective. Furthermore, they did discover the "globe-frogs," as they call the aliens, and they speak the local language, which none of our other personnel do. Though the CK-963 would not have been my personal choice to undertake this mission, I bow to pressures from above that dictate we should not antagonize the Ozranians in any way, lest that jeopardize future cooperation.

  Furthermore, the Ozranians have particularly requested that the same scoutship team convey them to their homeworld. Unfortunately, due to discovery of the Ryxi species a few months later, and the press of budget and time considerations since then, the Ozran file was placed at the bottom of Alien Outreach's agenda. As a result, no secondary contact team had been dispatched to the colony world to make further contact with the amphibioid population as was originally planned. The Ozranians prefer to deal only with humans who are familiar to them, and insist on Carialle and Keff.

  I gave orders that the team be pulled from its current assignment. It was a routine courier mission that did not specifically call for the talents of a brainship, and has been reassigned to another available crew.

  In reply to your insistence that we immediately remove CK-963 from the Ozran return mission I am taking the opportunity to acquaint you with the details of the original mission. In view of the outstanding success of the first contact, it is AOD's opinion that there is no apparent need to take this action. While I have reviewed the voluminous file you forwarded, there is no event among the forty-six incidents listed that would warrant an immediate recall of the brain/brawn team. If at some future date you produce evidence of instability on a level as to interfere with the mission, we will then follow your recommendation and replace the CK-963 with the group of experts now being assembled for the follow-up mission to Ozran. Those specialists should be on the station designated SSS-900-C within a month. I have simplified the technical material so as to make it understandable by the members of your department.

  AOD Mission CK-963 5458.89 OZ0001

  Initial observation two years ago of indigenous life on planet RNJ-599 revealed that there were two, possibly three, species of tool-using beings resident there. All three groups were soft-skinned, bilaterally symmetrical upright bipeds. Two of them, very humanoid in appearance, had skin colors in the beige to dark-brown range. One group of these appeared more intelligent and advanced than the others. Their manipulative extremities had five digits, arranged as a human's would be, with four fingers and an opposable thumb. They used a sophisticated system of power manipulation that was so advanced in its technology that it could be used to make the user fly, teleport solid objects, or even change the weather. The second species of humanoid bipeds had only four digits on each manipulaive extremity, and had hairy pelts. These beings served as the first group's trainable workforce. The Ozran "mages and magesses" (gender specific reference) had an extremely complex social hierarchy, and used without comprehension the scientific technology they possessed.

  Because it was so easy to use by beings with a high level of telempathy, certain "mage(sse)s" were able to access an amulet's power more readily than others, hence the stratification of society. Because it was easier to use the conductor units than to accomplish a task by hand, over time the humans pushed the gigantic generator almost to destruction. By the time Keff and Carialle landed, the system was disintegrating dangerously, and Ozran society was in a downward spiral.

  The third species, observed only casually, was a race of much smaller bipeds with skins in the green part of the spectrum. These lived a marginal existence in the meager swamps and marshlands of the arid continents.

  Further observation revealed that both of the larger species were of the same race, and not native to Ozran. In fact, they were human beings. The four-fingered hands of the workforce were not the result of mutation, but mutilation. These mages and magesses mutilated the others to prevent the system being used by anyone not considered to belong to the intellectual elite. The servitors were kept tractable with the use of drugs by the five-fingered controllers.

  Upon investigation, the humans proved to be a colony of the Central Worlds, who had landed on Ozran ten centuries ago. Ancient records of the initial overfly of the planet showed it to be a plum for settlers, with a fortunate climate, arable land and potable water, nitrox-mix atmosphere, suitably balanced gravity, moons to produce tides, and generally non-toxic plant life. Over time, they entirely lost contact with the Colonization Department. These humans had not invented the power system, but rather had inherited it from a race that had temporarily inhabited the planet. It was this unknown race of aliens that had stolen the power system from its inventors. They passed it on to the human settlers, then died out without telling them its source.

  The contact team discovered that the creators of the fabulous power control system turned out to be the small, green creatures (called by the scout team "globe-frogs"), also found not to be native to Ozran. The humans had dismissed the globe-frogs as mere swamp animals, failing to observe the signs of intelligence and civilization the beings displayed. It took special intervention by the brainship team to restore the technology to its inventors before the neglect of centuries caused a planetary cataclysm. Access to the power conductor units was sharply restricted, although not entirely removed from use by the mages and magesses. Before the team left they saw the beginnings of an attempt to establish a system of government shared equally by humans and globe-frogs.

  This amphibioid species, while not indigenous to Ozran, is of unusual interest to many sections of the Central Worlds government, not the least of which is this one. Such interest centers mainly around this scientific breakthrough reported by the initial contact team: the device which makes possible the remote manipulation of matter. Empirical observation suggests that those humans who use it have inbred a tendency toward telempathy which is necessary to operate the system. Science Resea
rch seems to think that it is possible to develop a variation of the power amulet that will allow anyone to make use of the Ozranian generators. As a result, we are all anxious to cooperate in any way the Ozrans require, to retain access to this important scientific breakthrough. Other departments that have requested more information are Science Research, Linguistics, and Economic Development.

  The location of the Cridi (globe-frog) homeworld has been pinpointed as closely as possible by Exploration's astronavigators. Assisted by Carialle, who also translated the globe-frogs' extant charts, a program designed to roll back celestial movement to where the stars lay a thousand years ago, approximately the time the globe-frogs lost touch with their homeworld. Two possibilities have emerged: two dwarf yellow stars in binary combination. The CK-963 team is to try the nearer star first.

  We have complied as promptly as possible with the amphibioids' request for the CK-963 to escort them to their homeworld. Central Worlds Administration pictures the globe-frogs as partners not only on the colony world of Ozran, but in the greater task of exploring the universe at large. We regret that the preliminary diplomatic and fact-finding mission to the globe-frogs' homeworld of Cridi also failed to materialize, but it is now too late either for regrets or a hasty dispatch of seasoned ambassadors. We are having to settle for Carialle and Keff going in cold.

  I would like to assure you that both Carialle and Keff have been thoroughly briefed on the importance of this assignment, and have been cautioned under penalty to keep the contact on an absolutely professional level.

  I again thank you for your interest in this department's function, and suggest that since we have come to terms with the immutable situation you should do so as well. I feel it is unwise to anticipate failure.

  Sincerely,

  Lavon Muller-Danes, Commander

  Alien Outreach

  Chapter One

  En Route to the Cridi System

  "What say you, good Sir Frog?" Keff asked, peering over the head of the small, green, bipedal amphibioid at the pieces of the three-dimensional puzzle spinning in midair at the entrance of the great hall of Castle Aaargh. The green being glanced up at him. He gestured toward the conundrum then flicked the tip of his unnaturally long forefinger against his knobby temple.

  "Not difficult," Tall Eyebrow signed. Swiftly, he pointed from one piece to another, indicating which edges fit against one another. As he made each match, the pieces flew together until there was only one object spinning before them. Keff studied it.

  "The Mask of Mulhavey," he said, awed.

  "What is this Mask of Mulhavey?" the globe-frog asked, combining sign language with the unfamiliar Standard words voiced in the high-pitched peep of his kind. "Is this an important artifact in your culture?"

  "Just a pretend artifact, TE," Keff said, as a quick aside. "Carialle made it up for the game. Stay with it."

  "Ah, make-believe." Tall Eyebrow nodded, and threw a self-deprecating gesture toward his host. "Forgive me. I forget this is but Myths and Legends." His signs grew more theatrical, in imitation of the human male. "What does this mean?"

  "I know not, my lord," Keff said, replying in both frog sign language and Standard. "Perhaps if we looked through the eyeholes we would see a wonder."

  "He's altogether too good at theoretical and combination spatial relations," Carialle said over the central room speaker as the two "adventurers" bent to see through the apertures of her creation. They made a curious picture. The man, of medium height for a human, had a broad chest, muscular arms and legs. He was dressed in a garment that reached to mid-thigh, not unlike a medieval tunic, over trousers and boots. His usual gentle countenance wore a watchful, inquiring scowl. Around his waist, a sword belt held a glow-tipped epee ready to hand. His companion stood less than a meter high, had shiny green skin, a short, narrow body and beady black eyes. His hands and feet were almost as large as those of the human beside him, the fingers of almost equal length to one another. He wore a beret, a short cape, and a belt around his small middle, its buckle a large, gold boss with five indentations in it that looked made for the fingertips to slide into.

  "Better than I am, my lady," Keff laughed, shaking his head. "I give up, TE. You tell me what you think we need to do with it."

  The game they were playing was Myths and Legends. Among the grounders, who occupied the safe and settled planets, it was a children's game. Keff had learned it in primary school, and had introduced it to his brain partner, Carialle, as a means of occupying the infinitely long intervals of space travel. To Keff it gave life a certain special meaning, to accomplish points of honor, to lay successes at the feet of his Lady Fair. He was a born knight errant. His private aim, ever since he had been a child, had been to do good, a goal that had gotten him into more than a few playground fights with schoolmates who lacked his natural devotion to the greater concept of truth. To Carialle, it provided an outlet for the creative bent that was so often lacking in the technical jobs given to shellpeople, even brainships. And it was fun. Over time, it had simply worked its way into their everyday lifestyle, to the despair of the Exploration arm of Central Worlds. To Exploration and Alien Outreach, Keff's globe-frog playmate was Tall Eyebrow, ambassador and representative from a shared colony world known to the humans who lived there as Ozran. To the knight and his lady, he was also occasionally the Frog Prince.

  Tall Eyebrow gestured to Keff to look through the eyeholes. Carialle was amused when her brawn had to crouch down on the floor to put his head at the same level as the globe-frog's.

  "It should have taken longer for him to solve that jigsaw," she said. "I'm going to have to make the puzzles harder. These little chappies have surprisingly deep minds. I am continually having to reevaluate my judgement of their ability to learn."

  "Well, you've already surpassed my understanding, Cari," Keff said cheerfully, rising from his haunches with his hands on his thighs. He turned toward the titanium pillar that contained and protected her physical body, and winked. The two years that had passed since they had first met the globe-frogs had lightened a few more hairs on his curly head, and possibly slowed down his reactions by milliseconds, but hadn't taken a whit off his boundless good nature or enthusiasm. His muscle tone continued to be excellent, Carialle was pleased to note, and the bright blue eyes in his mild, bull-like face were clear and alert. Respiration and pulse, up a little, but that had to do with excitement over the game rather than exertion. He stretched his arms out and rotated his broad torso from side to side to ease his back. "Actually, I'm enjoying being TE's sidekick, if I allow the truth to be known. After adventuring on my own for so many years, a change is nice."

  "I, too, am enjoying it," Tall Eyebrow signed quickly. "Too much reality for so long, to strive without fear is high fun."

  Keff grinned. "Well, that's why we do it— Yoicks!"

  Carialle had chosen that moment to activate the next peril in the ongoing game. The human jumped back as the holographic "stone wall" beside them slid back to reveal four villains, armed with chains and machetes. He felt for the light-tipped sword at his side, and was soon engaged in healthy battle with his computer-generated adversaries.

  The enemy was only a holograph, but Carialle made them look utterly real, using a combination of projective cameras like the ones that drove her navigation screentank. The setting, complete with cobwebs and rats, could have been any pre-industrial village, instead of the cabin of a sophisticated starship. The brain behind it was as clever as the swordplay of the villain facing him.

  Completely into his part once again, Keff slashed his blade overhand and thwacked the scarred villain in the arm. The man dropped his guard, giving Keff a chance to fling himself forward with a thrust to quarte. The glowing cursor went home, and the villain collapsed to the floor with a wail. Keff threw back his head with a feral laugh. "Come on! Who's next? Together we cannot be beaten!" Another adversary stepped forward over the body of his fallen chief, saber flashing in the candlelight.

  The globe-fr
og emitted an alarmed squeak. "What are those?" he signed, pointing at the sparks, like fireflies, that poured out of the dark hall after the human villains.

  "Some foul, unknown peril," Keff called over his shoulder, not taking time to sign. "Catch them!"

  The sparks flitted all over the room. Keff ducked a squadron of the small glows, then skillfully parried a chop from one of the hoods wielding a machete.

  The globe-frog took a moment, translating Standard human language to his own, then his small brow rose in comprehension. He bounded up to clap his hand against the wall next to Keff's head, trapping a "firefly."

  "That's one," Carialle said. "Fifteen to go."

  "You're letting them get away!" Keff cried. He was cornered between two of the foe, who stood tossing their weapons from hand to hand. One of them feinted, and Keff parried, sweating. Tall Eyebrow ran toward another elusive spark.

  "I will assist!" cried Small Spot. He was the more impetuous of the two aides who had accompanied Tall Eyebrow from Ozran. Small Spot, in spite of his diminutive sounding name, was large, as the amphibioids went. The "spot" was a lighter greenish patch in the center of his forehead. Unlike most of his species, his hide had a smooth color all over but for that. He sprang up from where he had been sitting on Keff's weight bench to aid his prince. The fingers of one hand slid into the five long grooves of his power amulet, and he rose five meters in the air to capture a "firefly" that had slipped Tall Eyebrow's grasp.

  He floated down from the ceiling, looking sheepishly at his empty palm. He glanced up at the others shyly.