The Ship Who Saved the Worlds

by Anne McCaffrey

  "I want to find their home system," she said. "I have to know what kind of culture fosters a history of mass piracy."

  "Right you are, my lady," Keff said, then paused. "You know, Diplomacy and Maxwell-Corey ordered us home. That message they sent with the ship said to relinquish the mission and return."

  "Bugger that for a game of soldiers, to quote you," Carialle said at once. "They just want me back under their eye so they can prove me mad. Everything changed when the griffins attacked the DSC-902. Their orders no longer apply. I need to follow this lead up, so I can show them the truth once and for all."

  "But if these aren't the ones?" Keff asked.

  "Then I'll know. But I'll never find out if we go back. The IG will slap me into protective custody, another highfalutin name for mental confinement. I'll never be satisfied with a remote report. I have to know. I have to. In the meantime, we're in pursuit of piratical perpetrators." The P's popped explosively in his ear. "Are you with me?"

  "Always and for ever," Keff said. Resolutely, he strode back to the main cabin. With the Cridi in tow, he went into the fore corridor that led to the bridge.

  The computer system was substantially like the one in the dome. All parts were of human manufacture. Some showed hard wear, especially the input peripherals. The navicomp, an ancient model of the kind used by vacuum miners, had been augmented by several different and mutually exclusive hard-memory storage units.

  "This group knows how to program," Carialle said. "I wonder why a race with the capability to get into space doesn't build its own equipment?"

  "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk?" Keff sat down on the sling with Cridi hovering on both sides. "Ready?" he asked Carialle.

  "Ready."

  He hooked into the information transfer port, and waited anxiously, with one hand on either side of the small screen, staring into its depths, while Carialle sifted the contents of the hard-storage. He could only sense fleeting impressions of individual star system maps as she read the memory and copied it into protected database.

  "We have a match." Her voice sounded triumphant. "Three star systems, put in relatively recently."

  "What are they?" Keff said, as the graphics appeared in the 2-D display.

  "No can tell, Sir Knight. They're in an alien typography. The keyboard must have been altered to create their symbols. There are sixty-eight. Your first clue to their language. Enjoy."

  Keff groaned. "Do you mean this is a dead end?"

  "Not at all." There was a long pause, and the stars spun by again, accompanied by colored screens full of square letters. "The flight recorder shows that two of them have been visited more than once. And you'll never guess where one of them is!"

  "I give up."

  "Right next door. The binary mate, PLE-329-JK6—straight across the lowermost boundary of P-sector. I followed the visual log entries, and I could identify half of the visuals from my personal memory."

  "That's incredible!" Keff exclaimed, then paused. "No, that's logical. Why else would they go to so much trouble to prevent a lot of traffic in this part of the galaxy?"

  "My thinking exactly," Carialle said. "So that's where we go. We try it first, and if it's wrong, we go on to the next one. One of these has to be home base."

  "Right. We try them one by one," Keff said.

  Tall Eyebrow and Narrow Leg had been watching Keff curiously, hearing half the conversation. Keff looked at them guiltily. He'd forgotten that he was not alone, and his companions were intelligent. And motivated.

  "Where to go next? This map?" the Cridi captain asked, pointing at the screen with a long finger.

  "You should all go home now," Keff said. "I thank you for your help and support, but I can't ask you to do any more."

  "But we would do much more," Narrow Leg signed, his old eyes wise in the wrinkled, green face. "You have done much for us, opening the way. Together, we defeated. You seek a voyage to unknown, to find truth. We wish also. We go with you."

  "But your own people need you for defense," Keff said. "It's one thing to have you accompany us in your own system, and quite another to subject you to unknown danger. Your ship is not prepared for a long space voyage. You . . . with respect, you lack training."

  "Give us training, then," Narrow Leg said. "We need also to find this truth. Many lives were lost—ships, years, lost also. I want explanations. If you say they are not to be found here, then we go to where they are."

  "I will train them," Tall Eyebrow said, tapping himself on the chest. "To survive—I know this."

  "Ship is ready interstellar travel," Narrow Leg said, with a throwaway gesture. "All supplies were loaded on board at departure. As for defense, half my crew are assembling two more ships from old ones and new parts. Cridi will be defended in atmosphere and out of atmosphere."

  Keff shook his head at the old male's expansive signs.

  "Captain, it'll take a long time to reach our destination, and we may not even find what we're looking for at this first stop. It could, no, it will be dangerous. I can't let you . . . er, take such important conclave councillors as Big Voice."

  Narrow Leg didn't miss the subtlety. He rolled a beady black eye at Keff. "That fat one will be all right. There is no time to waste. We must not divert back to Cridi. You must be after the villains track to source."

  "We come, too," Tall Eyebrow said, sweeping his hands to include his two companions and Big Eyes.

  "Yes," Big Eyes agreed, with a brilliant glance at him. "We follow Tall Eyebrow. Experienced twice in space."

  "Cari? We have to pursue this to the end, but they don't."

  "I'm torn," Carialle said. "We could use the backup. It won't come from CW for ages, even providing they know where we are going, which they do not, and we're not armed. The Cridi want to be our allies. On the other hand, I don't like it that they're entirely without experience. Particularly, I do not like flying interplanetary distances with a possibly explosive emotional problem."

  "Big Voice?" Keff asked sublingually, without moving his lips.

  "He's the only one who's manifested openly so far. Who knows if any of the others will destabilize during a long trip."

  Tall Eyebrow had not missed Keff's eye passing from Cridi to Cridi. "I vouch for each," he said in Standard. "They will not fail."

  "I think you'd better ask them," Keff said, both in Standard and sign. Tall Eyebrow looked a question at Narrow Leg, who raised his thin shoulders eloquently and let them drop. Big Eyes made a tentative sign, then glanced at Keff. He heard a faint peep as one of the engineers spoke through the amulet link.

  "Privacy," Carialle said.

  "Right you are," Keff said. He turned his back on them and studied the navigation tank. After a brief conference, punctuated by shrill exclamations and much rolling about the deck, Keff felt a tap against his leg. He looked down at Tall Eyebrow.

  "It is decided. We will come with you." He looked at the other seven Cridi. "We are all willing to go. The crew also." Big Voice, at the front of the group nodded vigorously, and favored Keff with a humanlike smile.

  "I wish to come. Otherwise this one," he pointed to Narrow Leg, "blames me for spoiling virgin ship flight."

  "You will be acclaimed hero, once home," Big Eyes squeaked, with mischief in her eyes. Big Voice relaxed back in his globe, a happy expression on his face. "All will recognize . . . ."

  "No," Tall Eyebrow said, stopping her with a downward stroke of his hand. He turned to Keff. "Not for that reason. He will go because he recognizes his fear and uncertainty, as we all do. No one goes just to prevent us from turning back."

  "I am selfish," Big Eyes said, her exuberance dimmed slightly by shame. She covered her eyes with her hands, then peeped coyly between her fingers at Keff. She was so cute he couldn't help but smile.

  "I go," Big Voice insisted. "Who else will see you do right? Also, I must meet the leaders of"—here he hooked his long thumbs together and spread his hands in imitation of wings—"griffins." I wish to know why th
ey hate us. I must ask. We will . . . negotiate." He paused before the last sign and glanced at Narrow Leg as if defying him to laugh. "You must teach us what we do not know." Keff smiled down at him. At last he understood why the plump amphibioid was one of the eight most important frogs on Cridi.

  "Thank you," he said. "It'll be good to have you along."

  "And we will teach you the joys of Myths and Legends," Tall Eyebrow squeaked happily.

  As soon as Keff had disconnected from the ship computer's I/O port, the Cridi destroyed the unit with the same thoroughness that they had the one in the dome. Keff examined the rest of the control board and indicated the communication set and guidance system. Tall Eyebrow delicately disassembled those, taking care to leave life support intact. The lights dimmed briefly, but came up again with a steady glow. At a nod from Narrow Leg, the ship's engineer and two of the crew went aft ahead of the rest of the group. Keff heard clashing and breaking sounds. When the three Cridi rejoined the others in the ship's main cabin, they bore between them a Core unit. It was old, and looked to be in bad shape.

  "I'd forgotten about that," Keff said. Narrow Leg looked grim.

  "We, never," the commander said. "And this ship will not rise again. We have destroyed the engine. Let us leave now."

  Free to use Core power, the Cridi swept their globes and Keff high over the dusty landscape, back toward the small valley where the ships lay hidden. Unwilling to look straight down, Keff turned his gaze back over his shoulder toward the dome, watching it until it vanished among the battered ridges. He signed a question to Narrow Leg.

  "What about the griffins?"

  "We can hold them all as long as need," the old Cridi replied.

  "Good. Release them when we leave orbit," Keff said. "I think we're safe, but I want to make sure."

  Narrow Leg sketched a quick OK with his long fingers.

  "I want you to hear this, Keff," Carialle said. "I'm shipping this off to the CenCom, and it's the last word they're going to hear from us until we find 'Griffin Central.' "

  "You sound so serious, Lady Fair," Keff said. He smiled at the frogs who glanced over when they noticed the movement of his head.

  "Never more in my life, but this is plain mutiny. I won't send it unless you give me your all-clear. I want to live to report to the Inspector General. If there's the least chance, I will show him who was crawling over my skin twenty years ago, and that he's been harassing me for nothing, but I refuse to endanger you. All I need is a single piece of my first ship for proof or an eyewitness, and if it's anywhere, it's in one of those three systems. Recording:

  " 'This is the CK-963,' " her voice said, sharp and metallic in intonation in his ear. " 'We wish to confirm absolutely that the DSC-902 was the victim of a fatal attack by alien forces. Three ships, carrying stolen Cridi artifacts and CW mining lasers, ambushed the DSC-902 while on its way into this system for a purely peaceful mission. All the crew are dead. Ten of the perpetrators have been marooned on the fifth planet from the Cridi sun. Video accompanying this message will show that this is a life-form with which Central Worlds is unfamiliar. We are following information received, to what we believe to be the aliens' homeworld at once. Coordinates for three potential systems are in the visual portion of this message. We will transmit again with further information when we have reached our final destination. Carialle out.' What do you think?"

  "Send it, lady," Keff said, firmly. "I'll be aboard in five minutes."

  Chapter Eleven

  As if the paralysis had never been, movement returned to the ten Thelerie. Those who had been poised for battle, fell over, and those whose eyes had been frozen open, blinked. No one spoke for a moment. Everyone exercised their muscles, and simply enjoyed the freedom. Then they took heed of their surroundings. The mess was heartbreaking.

  "I do not understand, Autumn," Crescent Moon blurted out, pieces of the precious computer clutched in all four of his hands. "Why did the human destroy our equipment? I've done my best to keep this station exactly as the Manual directs. It was neat, it was clean—and now, look!" The ground control commander sounded as near to trilling as a child. "Was he angry with our performance?"

  Autumn still kept her eyes closed, waiting for tear fluid to wash away the dust from her large, flat corneas. "You do not understand, Crescent. There are other humans than the Melange. You have never seen them. You showed aptitude for the computer, so it was the wisdom of the Melange that you went here before spending any time reiving. It is a shame."

  "It was the wisdom of the Melange," Crescent said, defiantly. The other station crew all dipped their heads and wings in a worshipful manner. "But this human did behave strangely."

  Rivulet shook his head. "He did not even speak properly. His hands moved often, but not his mouth. He wasn't like those from whom we receive goods, nor like those for whom we provide."

  "I think he is a captive of the Slime," Dawn piped up in his high, musical voice. "He is under their spell. They've directed the Slime Ball," he pronounced the human phrase most carefully, "to alter his mind. You know the power the Ball has. We do not know all its secrets."

  "Yes!" Rivulet agreed, holding out a claw. "See how he cowered from us, when he should know we are his to command."

  "We are not slaves of Humans," one protested.

  "No, no, but they give us all gifts in exchange for our aid," Captain Autumn said, pausing to consider. She lifted a wing claw. "This human needs rescue. My eyes were turned toward the screens when I froze under the monsters' power. I saw which maps he looked at. He wishes to go to Thelerie. Though he could not speak, his signs grew more frantic when he saw that chart. He can receive aid there, and be freed of the Slime. He was trying to tell us."

  "Ah!" The soft voices chorused together for a moment as the Thelerie realized the truth in the leader's words.

  "We should warn the others the Slime are heading toward the Center," Rivulet insisted.

  "How?" Autumn asked. "The Slime tore our communicator to bits." A wing swept over the shattered console. "I am sure they treated our poor ship the same." She turned to Dawn. "See how things stand. Send a message to the Melange if you can."

  The second flicked a claw at the rest of the crew. They dragged on their shipsuits and pattered out into the corridor after him. Autumn began to pick up the broken pieces with all her hands. Crescent and the other three ground crew bent to help. Though distressing, the debris was finite. In a short time, the wreckage was all cleared away.

  "I feel better," Crescent said, sitting down on his haunches and blowing a puff of air so his upper lip vibrated. "Now I do not feel as though I broke the trust."

  Autumn smiled, showing her fangs. Crescent was a simple soul at heart. Once a problem was out of sight, it was gone. "There is wisdom in hard work."

  She donned her shipsuit and went out to her craft. Dawn sat amidst the pieces of the control panel, shaking his great head from side to side. The captain looked down at him.

  "How bad, my friend?"

  "Perhaps the human stayed the Slime's fury," the lieutenant said. "The communication deck is destroyed, but the filtration systems are intact."

  Autumn felt the breath leave her body. "We cannot warn the Center in time. The Slime will be ahead of us."

  "Very far, I'm afraid," Dawn said, his large eyes worried. "The engine is ruined, but it was in Stage Four breakdown anyway. The landing finished it off."

  "The engine?" For the first time Autumn's expression brightened. "Ah." She wheeled on her haunches and trotted down the corridor toward the cargo compartment.

  With pleasure she surveyed the secured racks of parts from the CW ship. She was proud that her crew had responded so quickly with the others when the call came from Phyllis that there was a second invader, after the slim ship had escaped them into the atmosphere of the Slime planet. This large ship moved more slowly than the first, so it was easy for the reivers to get into position at the system's perimeter.

  As in the three examples in the Manua
l, the large ship did all the things an enemy would. It signalled them, ordered them to halt, and invoked the authority of the Central Worlds. Verje Bisman, and after him his child, Aldon Bisman, had from the earliest days, reminded the Thelerie that Central Worlds was the enemy. The See-Double-Yew comprised a few planets who stockpiled goods taken from decent beings and refused to allow access to them, even in great need. That was anathema to the Melange, who insisted that all people who could pay, in one coin or another, should have entitlement to all goods. That seemed right and proper.

  The Melange had taken goods from this aggressor, to distribute or keep as need dictated. The prize under their feet would have fetched a good price, but Autumn needed it herself now.

  At her direction, Dawn and the others knelt to take up the floor plates. Their muscles swelled under their hides as they pulled the heavy metal panels aside to uncover the biggest cargo cradle of all.

  Nestled in it a piece of machinery—an engine, a prize, a work of mechanical art. Autumn regarded it with affection and awe. The Central Worlds ship must have been nearly new. Inspection seals etched on the finest metal film were still affixed in the correct places on the engine's surface. The whole unit gleamed. With a claw-finger, Autumn traced the inscription on the largest piece of film: Dee-Ess-See-Nine-Oh-Too.

  "Install it in place of our old one. It will give us greater speed and stability for our journey back to Thelerie."

  Heartbeat, the youngest of them all, tilted her head up toward her captain, eyes full of despair.

  "But the navigation system was destroyed by the Slime."

  Autumn tapped the youngster with a wing-finger. "Have you no faith in your own soul? Center. Find your way back to the Center. It may take us many days to reach home, but we shall survive. I regret that we cannot warn Mirina in time. We can only hope she hears the messages we sent when the ship first entered the system."

  "Damn that ship," Rivulet said. "I wish they will be lost in the Void forever."

  "But it was beautiful, wasn't it?" Heartbeat said, looking at the others with rapture shining from her eyes. "So new." Her hands fumbled on the smooth sides of the engine. "So perfect."