'You guessed it,' Dveyella said.
'They are not very impressive,' the younger pilot remarked.
'I noticed how unimpressed you were,' Velmeran observed, still amused that Tregloran had nearly pulled his gun.
'They are very tall,' Steena offered. Modern humans were ten to fifteen centimeters taller than most Kelvessan but the fact remained that, from her unfortunatetly low point of view, everyone was tall.
Just then the doors of the tram snapped shut and the tram started off with an uncertain lurch that proceeded quickly to a descent that was just short of free-fall.
'Can we speak with them?' Tregloran asked eagerly.
'If you can speak Terran,' Velmeran said, switching to that language. 'I hope that you have been practicing it lately. It has been a few years since you had it in school.'
'I remember it well enough,' Tregloran answered in the same language, with a very allowable accent. Velmeran had a tremendous command of the language, since one of his hobbies was ancient literature. But Dveyella still held the advantage of practical application, since she also spoke five planetary dialects and two alien languages.
The trip down was short and swift, and after only a few seconds the tram began to brake to a sudden stop. Since there was no need for the protection of a roof overhead, the tram ramps opened directly onto an open platform overlooking a wide square formed by the two wings of the port hotel. Looking outward from the platform, Vannkarn appeared much the same as any other port city. Tall buildings of various shapes and colors rose across the uneven landscape. Wide avenues formed ordered paths between the towering structures, complete with forested parks and fountains, but above a gently curving ceiling of rock replaced the open expanse of sky, the Starwolves standing at the northern edge.
But above all there were humans to be seen by the thousands wherever they turned, nearly half as many in this one city of two million as there were Kelvessan in existence. To Velmeran, humans were descended from the Great Ones of long ago, Olympian gods of antiquity such as Shakespeare, Beethoven, Tolkien and Brahms, who had written the stories and the music he loved, and that influenced his own image of the race. When he fought it was against machines, with only a dim awareness that there were men at the controls. By contrast, Tregloran appeared to see only the ancient enemy of his people.
Most Kelvessan had a quiet fascination with the human race. Some, like Velmeran, believed that humans had greater control over their own destinies, and were free to be whatever they desired. Others thought that humans lived a fairly idyllic and purposeful existence, free of struggle, fear and devotion to duty beyond their own wants and desires. Those, of course, were the dreams. A few port leaves quickly impressed upon a young Starwolf that humans were, by their standards, physically, mentally, socially and morally inferior, greedy, quarrelsome, selfish, bigoted and slow of wit beyond anything they would accept in themselves. Velmeran simply was not 'worldly' enough to know that; his image of the human race was still hidden beneath the veneer of what he wanted to believe it should be.
There was an unseen barrier between men and Kelvessan, such as did not exist with other races. Each possessed the virtues that the other lacked. Kelvessan were intelligent, strong, long-lived and lacking the baser emotions and drives that formed the dark side of human nature.
But humans also possessed a naive belief in themselves that lent originality to all things of their creation. It was that self-belief that the Kelvessan had yet to learn, and what Velmeran wanted most to discover in his kind. It had not yet occurred to him that he needed to look inside himself for that belief and confidence.
But the younger pilots were not given time to look around, for there was one remaining task to be completed before they would be free for port leave. Dveyella, the senior officer, took the lead. They boarded a smaller overhead tram that took them from the port entrance to the far side of the cavern. Here, protected by the thickest roof of solid rock, was the sector capital building, the residence of both the Sector Council and the High Councilor, as well as Sector Command of the Union Fleet. It would seem about the last place in all Vannkarn where Starwolves would care to go. And yet they had been coming here for many thousands of years like pilgrims to an ancient shrine.
Near the top of the immense terraced structure was a single vast chamber. Tiles of dark stone covered the walls and floor, and large windows, behind and to the side, were enclosed with panes of gold-tinted glass. Indeed it did seem like a shrine for some sacred or revered object, and yet, positioned on a low stone slab atop a three-step dais, was but a single block of dull gray metal. It was large, two meters high by three wide and eight in length. The metal casing appeared to be quite thick, not unlike armor, and rounded at the edges and corners. Bands of some protective metal also enwrapped it, and yet there was no other feature to it except the twin tracks that ran down each of its long sides and a number of rectangular receptacles on each end, as though it was meant to be interconnected with a battery of computers.
There were few visitors in the chamber and those left quickly when the Starwolves arrived. Dveyella continued to lead the way, walking quickly across the room to stand at the base of the steps, where a rope of gold braid was hung from gilded posts to hold back visitors. She turned to face the students, who gathered about her.
'Do you know what this is?' she asked quickly, but did not wait for them to reply. 'You see before you the one great trophy the Union has been able to take in the course of this long war. This is, as well, one of our two greatest shames. It is not likely that you have heard this before. Now that you can see it for yourselves, it is time for you to learn of the two times that the Starwolves have failed.'
'Failed who?' Tregloran alone dared to ask.
'Failed themselves,' she answered. 'Do you know what this is?'
'It looks like part of a large computer,' he speculated cautiously.
'This is a memory cell from a Starwolf carrier,' she said. 'The traits and personal memories of a ship are held in there. There are eight scattered throughout a ship, with enough duplication in the information they store and the computers they drive that even extensive damage does not affect the operation of a ship. That, for all practical purposes, holds the life of a ship. The Theralda Vardon, to be exact.
'The Vardon came out of the early days of the war. That was back when the Union still had the technology and industry to be able to fight us… and occasionally win. The Vardon was besieged and destroyed about sixteen thousand years ago, the last of the fifty-seven carriers to be lost, in the years when the Kelvessan were in some danger of dying out.
'Most likely she was ripped apart by a small thermonuclear explosion from a shield-penetrating missile, such as the Union has not been able to build in ten thousand years. According to the Union's own story, a piece of the wreckage was found much later, and the unit was discovered inside. They salvaged it, recognized it as something important and brought it here for safekeeping. Since they assume that we cannot get to it here, they soon grew bold enough to place it on public display.'
'Can we get it back?' Merkollyn asked.
'Yes, if we want to try hard enough,' she answered. 'Since the unit is of no use to the Union, we have let matters stand until we are ready for it.'
'Ready for it?' Tregloran, always the quickest, caught a hidden meaning in that.
Dveyella nodded slowly. 'That is the second of our failings. You recall, do you not, that we left Terra during the early days? The Union could not get at Terra directly, but they did something that forced us to retreat from the planet for many thousands of year. Just what is not exactly known.
'Now comes the strange part of the story. We lost much in that hasty retreat from Terra. Since we could no longer return there, within time even its very location was recorded only in the memories of the great ships. And the Vardon was the last ship built before the loss of Terra, the last ship that knew where to find it. Since the Union knows even less of Terra than we do, there is no one today who knows where Terra is.
'But Terra was not destroyed. Whatever happened, it was understood from the start that we could return there someday. And our kind has long held a belief, almost a prophecy, although based, I fear, on wishful thinking. The Starwolves have long believed that when the time comes that we may at last win this war, when the Union is waning in strength and we are waxing, then Terra will be found. And the only place where we might discover how to find it is in the Vardon's memory cell.'
Tregloran stared in disbelief. 'You mean this unit is still operational?'
'Of course,' Dveyella replied. 'A sudden ripping out of the leads can cause the memory to scramble, but a
