descendants. He regularly deleted the memory of his boredom.
Once he had examined the solution to the Four-Color Problem in topology. The proof submitted in 1976 by Appal and Haken could not be checked except by a computer. Kendy was a computer, he had experienced the proof directly and found it valid. He remembered only that.
The details he had deleted.
He had used a simplified program for the CARM computers, then deleted it. But now he had the CARM's program as a template. He ran through it, sharpening everywhere, correcting where suitable, updating his own simplified personality…leaving intact the CARM's own memories of the time of mutiny, because he was determined to ignore them. He looked for a way to plug the leak in the cabin. It was hopeless: the life support sensors had failed, not the program. He almost deleted the command that barred use of the main motor. The main motor was more efficient. He didn't understand that command…but it was input, and recent. He left it alone.
Now: a course program to bring them here, to study them
He barely had time to hope. Kendy apprehended orbital mechanics directly. He saw instantly that the fuel wasn't there, nor the sunlight to electrolyze enough water in time. His own pair of CARMS, which fed him power via their solar collectors, didn't have fuel to meet and tow the savages' CARM even if he were willing to risk them both.
Forget it and try again…He could get them back into the Smoke Ring via a close approach past Goldblatt's World. In fact, the CARM's computer had already worked out a course change. It didn't matter.
They'd be dead by then.
He left that part of the program intact. He deleted the barriers that barred him from communication. He beamed the revised program to the CARM at the snail's pace the CARM could accept.
The CARM filed it.
It had worked! At least he could look them over, get to know them a little, before they were gone. After five hundred and twelve years!
The cold had gotten to the jungle giants. Anthon and Debby and Ilsa were curled into a friendly, cuddling, shivering ball, with the spare ponchos pulled around them.
The other passengers were taking it better. There were ponchos for everyone but Mark, and two to spare. One they tore into scarves. Jinny wound a scarf around Mark's neck and tucked the ends into the collar of the silver suit. 'Comfortable?'
The silver man seemed cheerful enough, despite the lines that held him immobile in his chair. 'Fine, thanks.'
'Is that suit thick enough?'
'Damn it, woman, you're the one who's shivering. This suit keeps its own temperature, just like the carm. If anyone needs my scarf. you want it?'
Jinny smiled and shook her head.
'Of course, I'd be even better off with my helmet closed,' Mark said, and they laughed as if he'd said something funny. It didn't need saying: if they couldn't plug the leak, or if Lawri chose to kill them somehow, Mark would die with the rest.
The Grad had made a torch from one of the scarves plus fat scraped from the skin of the salmon bird. He was about to light it when he noticed mist before his face. He blew…white smoke. Everyone save Horse was breathing white smoke, as if they were all using tobacco.
'If you think something's leaking, breathe on it!' he announced.
'Watch your breath. No, Jayan, forget the doors. Voice has sensors there.'
Lawri did something to the controls 'I'm turning up the humidity-the wetness in the air. More fog that way.'
Citizens took their turns at the control panel to find the blank spots in the yellow diagram. The Grad began the uncomfortable job that others might miss: he crawled between the seats, edging around the cold corpse of Gavving's friend, blowing mist where the floor joined the starboard wall.
Merril called, 'I've got it. It's the bow window.'
A crowd of citizens crawled around the rim of the bow window, blowing, watching the pale smoke form streamlines where the window joined the hull. The window was loose around the ventral-port corner.
'Keep looking,' Lawri ordered. 'There may be more.'
She herself made her way aft. The Grad joined her at the back wall. 'What have you got in mind? Is there a way to plug the leaks?'
Voice began a countdown. Lawri waited while small jets fired. The cluster of jungle giants sagged against the aft wall without falling apart. Ilsa giggled. She must be still floating from the spitgun drug.
The burn ended. Lawri said, 'Maybe. Have we got something to hold water?'
The Grad called, 'We need squeezegourds!'
They found three. Merril collected them and brought them back. Jayan and Jinny were blowing on the side windows, which seemed all right. Gavving and Minya moved along the rim of the bow window, blowing and watching. Mist formed outside and vanished immediately, along a curve of window as long as the Grad's arm, shoulder to fingers.
Lawri turned a valve. Brown water oozed from the aft wall, formed a growing globule.
'It's mud!' Merril said in disgust.
Lawri said, 'We put pond water in. The carm breaks the pure water into hydrogen and oxygen, but it leaves the goo behind. Every so often we have to clean it out. That's why there's an eject system, and you can be damn glad of it.'
'We can't drink that stuff. We should have picked up Minya's water supply.'
'Say that if we live long enough to get thirsty.' Lawri took the gourds and filled them from the brown globule. Merril winced, watching each of their water gourds become fouled.
Lawri went forward with the gourds. Would she plug the leak with mud? He could do it himself, now, if Lawri balked; but he wanted her on his side, as far as that was possible.
Lawri squeezed muddy water along the rim of the bow window.
Mist showed outside. The glass began to frost. The water stayed where she put it, in a long brown bubble. Over the next several minutes-while Lawri alone watched the controls-the water dwindled and thickened to a darker brown. Presently it began to turn hard.
Clave said, 'Grad? Is it working?'
The Grad had read of ice. It was no more real to him than the liquefied gases in the tanks. He looked to Lawri.
Lawri met his eyes and said, 'I will not accept the position of Scientist's Apprentice.'
After such a performance, was she quitting on them? Clave spoke first, and in haste. 'I'm certain there's room in Quinn Tribe for two Scientists. Especially under the circumstances.'
'I've saved you. Now I want to go home to London Tree. That's all I want.'
She's earned it, the Grad thought, but— Clave said, 'Point to it.'
The carm was nose-down to the Smoke Ring. Closest was the storm pattern that surrounded and cloaked Gold, a turbulent spiral of cloud, humped in the middle. The whole pattern drifted west at a speed that looked sluggish, but must be quick beyond imagination. The arms of the Smoke Ring reached away in both directions. They could see the flow of cloud currents, faster toward Voy, drifting backward near the carm. Minor details-like integral trees-were invisibly small.
'You're the Scientist,' Clave said. 'Could you get us back to London Tree?'
Lawri shook her head. She began to shiver; and once begun, she couldn't stop. Minya got her the last of the ponchos and they wrapped it around her, then tied a strip of cloth round her head and throat. She said, 'We're not losing air anymore. Leave the humidity up and we won't get thirsty so fast. Jeffer, I'm cold and tired and lost. I can't make decisions. Don't bother me.'
They weren't human.
Kendy had watched them for a bit. They had the temperature turned far down. Kendy was going to fix it, until he realized that the lowered temperature had slowed the leak.
