One of the most beautiful sights in the universe, at least to a being who is composed of flesh and blood and has a large percentage of water in his makeup, is a water planet, a planet in the life zone of a star, a living world that gleams blue from space, blue because of her oceans, blue because of an abundance of that precious substance that is necessary to all life as man knows it. Water. «Ummmmm huh,» Julie said, for there on the screen swam a blue planet with green and brown land areas and fleecy areas of clouds and polar icecaps. «Oh, yes,» she whispered, and then, «Scan results?» «Negative on all, Cap'n,» the tech said. «Negative on electromagnetic radiations. Negative on life signals.» «Distance?» «Point-nine b.m.» Julie nodded. Rimfire was almost one billion miles from the pretty, blue planet. It would take some damned sophisticated equipment to detect her at that distance. «Keep on it,» she said. She motioned to Ursy and they left the observatory together. On the bridge Julie slumped into the captain's chair, chin in hand. Ursy brought up the blue planet on the bridge screens. «Get me communications,» Julie said. And when the signal was answered, «Service, emergency, and hailing frequencies. Send just this: Erin. Respond. Send it five times, thirty seconds apart.» She put her feet up on the console. Worn places in the service gray paint showed that she was not the only one who assumed that relaxed position while on watch. «Keep checking with the observatory,» she told Ursy. «Take her in on flux, slow, and keep all eyes on the planet.» «Aye, aye,» Ursy said, punching cruise orders into the computer. Minutes later communications said, «No answer, Captain.» «Thank you,» Julie said. «I really expected her to answer,» Ursy said. Julie Roberts felt a tickling, crawling feeling on the back of her neck. «I wonder why Erin didn't wait for us on Haven,» Ursy said. «Do you suppose she's down there somewhere on the planet?» «You tell me,» Julie said. «What I'm wondering is why she'd fool around mining a few million dollars worth of gold when the prize money for finding a life zone planet would make her one of the richest women in the U.P.» «I hadn't thought of that,» Ursy said. Julie pushed the communicator with her toe. «Observatory.» «Aye, Captain.» «Scan results?» «Still negative on everything.» «Combustion products?» «Not quite near enough yet for that, Cap'n.» «Let me know,» Julie said. So far there was no sign of life on the planet. There were no electromagnetic waves such as those created by the broadcast of sound, image, or power. There were no life signals such as would emanate from large groupings of biological life. If there was only scattered and nontechnologically advanced life on the planet, the ship's instruments would pick up combustion's products when she was near enough. Smoke from fossil fuel would be significant and would cause her to go into a program of approach that had been used only once before, when an X&A ship had rediscovered Old Earth and moved very, very carefully toward contact with what was thought to be an alien people. Widely scattered, small sources of wood smoke could mean a less advanced people. There was nothing to do but wait. «I'll be in my quarters, Ursy. I am available.» «Yes, ma'am.» No one had mentioned it as yet, at least not on the bridge, but Ursy was smiling because she knew that the whole crew stood to gain from the discovery of a water world. Since exploration was their job, the Service people wouldn't receive the rights and payments that went to a civilian who found a good world, but there'd be a small monetary bonus and, best of all, liberty time added to that which had accrued. Ursy's favorite place to spend liberty was on her home planet, Tigian III, where the waters of the lake on which her parents lived were virgin pure and teeming with the meanest and best tasting fish on any U.P. world. Finding a water world would mean an extra month there when Rimfire went back to Xanthos for routine servicing. CHAPTER NINETEEN As the work aboard the Mother Lode continued, Erin and Denton were locked into an exhausting routine. They were part of the Amplifier. They were only given time to sleep a few hours. In order to eat they had to snatch a bite on the run. A sense of urgency emanated from the two beautiful, winged entities as the titanic force of their will combined with the power from the generator and was funneled through the Amplifier to send the tumbling asteroids of the belt crashing into one growing mass. Time was meaningless. Erin saw the chronometer as she passed through the bridge, but hours, days, weeks, all were the same. While there was charge in Mother's generator she worked, and while she was working the control was tight, causing her to function mechanically, making independent thought difficult. While the generator was charging, both Erin and Dent fell into bed, spent. Talking required energy and the aliens were demanding more than the human body was equipped to give over a long period of time. Even thought was an effort, but after sleep, alone in Erin's quarters, dreading the next period of work, they could cling together and wonder. The winged beings were making a world. With the power of the stars and their own will they were reassembling the destroyed planet piece by piece. At first, swarming masses of asteroids had crashed together in roiling, splintering violence. Now, after a period of time, the accumulated mass was larger and the available material was thinning out. Even at accelerated speeds that were significant fractions of the speed of light it took time to move an asteroid along an orbital path that measured millions of miles in circumference. They were growing more and more intolerant. No longer were they oblivious to mere men. Even in the numbed state of helplessness that was existence under the control of the female alien, Erin began to sense that they were becoming more and more angry. Punishment in the form of mental pain that blacked out all existence for a period of time came for the smallest infraction, for looking up from the work, for an errant thought. Following one sleep period, while the generator was still charging and Erin and Dent were in the captain's cabin nervously awaiting the summons to return to the workroom, Dent said, «They are not divine.» Erin just shook her head, too weary to play the game of conjecture about them. «They're going to fail, Erin, and when they do they'll be mad as hell.» He put his hand on her shoulder and turned her to face him. «In a lot of ways they're ignorant, or naive. Or maybe what was done to them, having to spend only God knows how long imprisoned in rock, drove them just a bit insane. First of all, there's not enough material to form a planet of the same size as the original. When it was shattered, large chunks were
propelled out of the sun's gravity well, or, at best, sent off on errant orbits, like comets. They're going to find that the planet they're building will be considerably smaller, maybe too small to hold an atmosphere.» Erin nodded. «They're not God,» Dent said. «They have the ability to fling the broken pieces together. Natural forces may or may not heat the core, but what then?» «They're pretty amazing,» Erin said. «They can totally disassemble a living thing and put it back together in the same form or in an altered form.» «But that is not creation,» Dent said. «That's my whole point. Maybe they can form a planet. Maybe, over a few million years, natural forces will cause vulcanicity. Maybe they can even accelerate the process. Since they can dismantle a living thing and use the cells or molecules or whatever for building blocks, maybe they can even manipulate nonorganic materials. Maybe they can break oxygen and hydrogen loose from the rocks and combine them to make water—» «I think I know what you're saying,» Erin said. «They haven't performed any act of creation. To form their bodies they had to have the material from Plough and his crew.» «So even if they can make a world and give it oxygen and water—» «They can't make a blade of grass.» «And before a planet is habitable there must be vegetation,» Dent said. «How much of his thoughts do you pick up?» Erin asked. «He gets a little careless at times. He's a horny bastard.» She shuddered, remembering his ruthless attentions. «He sees in his mind a sort of paradise, empty except for the two of them. There's lush vegetation but no animal life. Apparently they don't eat.» «Have you noticed that they're losing weight?» He nodded. «They don't eat, but their bodies are made of flesh and blood. That's another reason why I feel that they might be a little bit insane. Otherwise they'd have to see that they're using up the material that forms their bodies.» Mop, who had been sleeping at their feet, decided that it was time for him to get some attention. Erin rubbed his silky ears. He flopped onto his back with a contented sigh and she rubbed his chest and belly. «What's going to happen then?» Erin asked. «I think when they realize that they're going to fail in their attempt to recreate their world, they'll start looking for a world that has already been made.» She shuddered again. «Can you imagine them loose on a populated planet?» «If Mother had a self-destruct button, I might think of pushing it,» she said. Dent held her close, for the mere thought of her death devastated him. However, he had entertained similar thoughts. * * * They could use the power of the generator and their wills to break out oxygen and hydrogen from the rock. And they did it in mighty floods that quickly filled huge basins to form oceans. The power of the sun condensed water and there was weather. But under the rains the sterile rock glistened and endured. The process of erosion would be one for the ages. Soil formation was a thing of the far future. The waters of the blue oceans were unfruitful. They looked down on their work and fretted. They sent thunderbolts of pure power to shatter unyielding mountains, but there was no life. She vented some of her frustration on Erin, jerking her from her body to put her in storage inside the small skull of Mop the dog. The transition was no longer shocking. Man is a very adaptable animal. Erin used such times to try to make her little buddy aware that he was not alone in that odd little brain of his, that he had an unwilling but well-meaning guest. Life was so simple for Mr. Mop. He ate. He slept. He coaxed his humans into playing with him, or petting him. He did not have headaches, acid stomach, stiff limbs, or sore muscles. He went through the day with his stub of a tail pointed jauntily high, a barometer of his spirits. He had come to accept that now and then his humans were not available. He knew that Erin was not at home in her body at the moment. Of course, he could not think in those terms, he was just aware that it would be useless to try to attract Erin's attention as she made jerky, robotic movements at the control console of the Amplifier. «I'm here,
