her disapproval of this quest more and more obvious over the last few days. She wanted him to turn around, report to HQ, and leave the Kirkasanters there for whatever they might be able to make of themselves in a lifetime’s exile. Well… her judgments were always conditioned by the fact that she was a Range vessel, built for Ranger work. But couldn’t she see that his duty, as well as his desire, was to help Graydal’s people?
The screen flickered. The two ships were so differently designed that it was hard for them to stay in phase for any considerable time, and thus hard to receive the modulation imposed on spacepulses. After a while the image steadied to show a face. “I’ll switch you to Captain Demring,” the communications officer said at once. In his folk, such lack of ceremony was as revealing of strain as haggardness and dark-rimmed eyes.
The image waverered again and became the Old Man’s. He was in his cabin, which had direct audiovisual connections, and the background struck Laure anew with outlandishness. What history had brought forth the artistic conventions of that bright-colored, angular-figured tapestry? What song was being sung on the player, in what language, and on what scale? What was the symbolism behind the silver mask on the door?
Worn but indomitable, Demring looked forth and said, “Peace between us. What occasions this call?”
“You should know what I’ve learned,” Laure said. “Uh, can we make this a three-way with your navigator?”
“Why?” The question was machine steady.
“Well, that is, her duties—”
“She is to help carry out decisions,” Demring said. “She does not make them. At maximum, she can offer advice in discussion.” He waited before adding, with a thrust: “And you have been having a great deal of discussion already with my daughter, Ranger Laure.”
“No… I mean,, yes, but—” The younger man rallied. He did have psych training to call upon, although its use had not yet become reflexive in him. “Captain,” he said, “Graydal has been helping me understand your ethos. Our two cultures have to see what each other’s basics are,if they’re to cooperate, and that process begins right here, among these ships. Graydal can make things clearer to me, and I believe grasps my intent better, than anyone else of your crew.”
“Why is that?” Demring demanded.
Laure suppressed pique at his arrogance—he was her father—and attempted a smile. “Well, sir,
“That is not necessarily desirable,” Demring said.
Laure recollected that, throughout the human species, sexual customs are among the most variable. And the most emotionally charged. He put himself inside Demring’s prejudices and said with what he hoped was the right slight note of indignation: “I assure you nothing improper has occurred.”
“No, no.” The Kirkasanter made a brusque, chopping gesture. “I trust her. And you, I am sure. Yet I must warn that close ties between members of radically different societies can prove disastrous to everyone involved.”
Laure might have sympathized as he thought,
Demring relaxed. The =human universe he could cope with. “Proceed at will, Ranger.”
When he had heard Laure out, though, he scowled, tugged his beard, and said without trying to hide distress: “Thus we have no chance of finding Kirkasant by ourselves.”
“Evidently not,” Laure said. “I’d hoped that one of my modern locator systems would work in this cluster. If so, we could have zigzagged rapidly between the stars, mapping them, and had a fair likelihood of finding the group you know within months. But as matters stand, we can’t establish an accurate enough grid, and we have nothing to tie any such grid to. Once a given star disappears in the fog, we can’t find it again. Not even by straight-line backtracking, because we don’t have the navigational feedback to keep on a truly straight line.”
“Lost.” Demring stared down at his hands, clenched on the desk before him. When he looked up again, the bronze face was rigid with pain. “I was afraid of this,” he said. “It is why I was reluctant to come back at all. I feared the effect of disappointment on my crew. By now you must know one major respect in which we differ from you. To us, home, kinfolk, ancestral graves are not mere pleasures. They are an important part of our identities. We are prepared to explore and colonize, but not to be totally cut off.” He straightened in his seat and turned the confession into a stragetic datum by finishing dry-voiced: “Therefore, the sooner we leave this degree of familiarity behind us and accept with physical renunciation the truth of what has happened to us—the sooner we get out of this cluster—the better for us.”
/ “No,” Laure said. “I’ve given a lot of thought to your situation. There are ways to navigate here.”
Demring did not show surprise. He, too, must have dwelt on contingencies and possibilities. Laure sketched them nevertheless:
“Starting from outside the cluster, we can establish a grid of artificial beacons. I’d guess fifty thousand, in orbit around selected stars, would do. If each has its distinctive identifying signal, a spaceship can locate herself and lay a course. I can imagine several ways to make them. You want them to emit something that isn’t swamped by natural noise. Hyperdrive drones, shuttling automatically back and forth, would be detectable in a light-year’s radius. Coherent radio broadcasters on the right bands should be detectable at the same distance or better. Since the stars hereabouts are only light-weeks or light-months apart, an electromagnetic network wouldn’t take long to complete its linkups. No doubt a real engineer, turned loose on the problem, would find better answers than these.”
“I know,” Demring said. “We on
“Yes.”
“I like to think,” said Demring, “that the clans of Hobrok would not haggle over who was to pay the cost. But I have talked with men on Serieve. I have taken heed of what Graydal does and does not relay of her conversations with you. Yours is a mercantile civilization.”
“Not exactly,” Laure said. “I’ve tried to explain—”
“Don’t bother. We shall have the rest of our lives to learn about your Commonalty. Shall we turn about, now, and end this expedition?”
Laure winced at the scorn but shook his head. “No, best we continue. We can make extraordinary findings here. Things that’ll attract scientists. And with a lot of ships buzzing around—”
Demring’s smile had no humor. “Spare me, Ranger. There will never be that many scientists come avisiting. And they will never plant beacons throughout the cluster. Why should they? The chance of one of their vessels stumbling on Kirkasant is negligible. They will be after unusual stars and planets, information on magnetic fields and plasmas and whatever else is readily studied. Not even the anthropologists will have any strong impetus to search out our world. They have many others to work on, equally strange to them, far more accessible.”
“I have my own obligations,” Laure said. “It was a long trip here. Having made it, I should recoup some of the cost to my organization by gathering as much data as I can before turning home.”
“No matter the cost to my people?” Demring said slowly. “That they see their own sky around them, but nonetheless are exiles—for weeks longer?”
Laure lost his patience. “Withdraw if you like, Captain,” he snapped. “I’ve no authority to stop you. But I’m going on. To the middle of the cluster, in fact.”
Demring retorted in a cold flare: “Do you hope to find something, that will make you personally rich, or only personally famous?” He reined himself in at once. “This is no place for impulsive acts. Your vessel is undoubtedly superior to mine. I am not certain, either, that
“Any time; Captain.” Laure cut his circuit.
He sat then, for a while, fuming. The culture barrier couldn’t be that high. Could it? Surely the Kirkasanters
