Starplex

'You said that darmat was about to reproduce. It hasn't done a thing.'

'You are spoiled by being a sociologist, Lansing. In the hard sciences, we occasionally have to face the reality that some of our theories will actually be disproven.'

'It was a rose—'

'It was an experiment. Suggesting anything else is conjecture; persist publicly in it, and I shall bring defamation charges against you.'

'You bastard. If Rissa dies—'

'If Dr. Cervantes dies, I will mourn. I wish her no ill. But for all we know, she and Longbottle have maneuvered through the shortcut to safety. It is my compatriots who have died today, not yours.'

Lianne spoke softly from her console. 'He's right, Keith. We've lost equipment, and we've got several people who are injured. But no one from Starplex is dead.'

'Except possibly Rissa and Longbottle,' snapped Keith.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. 'It's all about money, isn't it, Jag? Of all the Commonwealth homeworlds, Rehbollo's economy took the biggest hit when interstellar commerce opened up. You guys never build two things the same—'

'To do so is an affront to the God of Artisans—'

'To do so is efficient, and your factories and workers were not. So you tried to goose the government coffers.

Even disassembled for parts, Starplex would be worth trillions — lots of glory in that. And if war erupted over its seizure, well, nothing like a little war to give the economy a boost, eh?'

'No sane being wants war,' said Jag.

'PHANTOM,' snapped Keith, 'Jag is again under house arrest.'

'Acknowledged.'

'It may please the punitive in you to do that,' barked Jag. 'But this is still a science vessel, and we are the first Commonwealth beings ever to be in intergalactic space. We should determine our exact location — and I am the most qualified person to undertake that task.

Rescind the arrest order, shut up and leave me alone, and I shall try to figure out where we are.'

'Boss,' said Thor gently, 'he's right, you know. Let him help.'

Keith fumed for a few moments longer, then nodded curtly. But when he did nothing further, Thor spoke into the air. 'PHANTOM,' he said.

'Cancel house arrest on Jag.'

'Cancellation requires authorization from Director Lansing.'

Keith exhaled noisily. 'Do it — but, PHANTOM, monitor every command he issues. If any of them seem unrelated to determining our location, notify me at once.'

'Acknowledged. House arrest ended.'

Keith looked at Thor. 'What's our current heading?'

Thor consulted his instruments. 'We're still on a modified version of the parabolic course we used to slingshot around the green star. Obviously, the path changed when we ceased to be under that star's gravitational influence, so—'

'Magnor,' said Jag, interrupting. 'I need you to rotate the ship in a Gaf Wayfarer pattern; we are missing one hyperscope array, but I need a parallactic full-sky hyperspace scan.'

Thor tapped some keys. The holographic bubble around the bridge began a complex series of rotations, but because the bubble was empty save for a few indistinct smudges of white, the tilting and turning didn't cause vertigo. The pilot looked at Keith again. 'As for getting home, the shortcut exit behind us shows in hyperspace just like every other one I've ever seen, complete with zero meridian. Assuming the damned things still work the same way over millions of light-years, once Lianne gets our full electrical system back on-line, I should be able to put us back at any active shortcut you specify.'

'Good' said Keith. 'Lianne, how badly damaged were we in the battle?'

'Decks fifty-four through seventy are flooded,' she said, into a hologram of Keith's head, 'and everything from deck forty-one down has some water damage. Also, all decks below the central disk took a heavy hit of radiation as we careened around the green star; I advise declaring the entire lower half uninhabitable.' She paused. 'The Starplex 2 team is going to be pissed off with us — we've now fried both sets of lower-habitat modules.'

'What about our shields?'

'Our forcefield emitters were all overloaded, but I've already got my engineers working on repairs; we should have minimal screens within an hour. In a way, it's good we came out in intergalactic space. The chances of running into a micrometeoroid out here are slim.'

'What about the damage done when Gawst carved out our number-two generator?'

'My teams have put temporary bulkheads in place around the hole where it was removed,' said Lianne. ''That should hold until we get back to a spacedock.'

'And the other generators?'

'Number three has had all its electrical connections severed. I've got a crew working on hooking it back up again, but I don't know if we've got enough wide-gauge fiber-optic cable in stock to do the job; we may have to manufacture some. Anyway, until we get it back on-line, we won't be able to use the main engines. One of the other Waldahud ships had started carving out the number-one generator, as well. That's the one that quit, causing the power failure. We should be able to repair that damage, though.'

'And what about the docking bays?'

'Bay sixteen is filled with frozen water,' said Lianne. 'Also, three of the five probeships that were involved in the battle are in need of repairs.'

'But we're still spaceworthy?' asked Keith.

'I want to schedule about three weeks in dock for repairs, but, yes, we're in no immediate danger.'

Keith nodded. 'In that case, Thor, as soon as Lianne says we're ready for powered flight, I'll want you to plot a course through the shortcut that will pop us out where we started, back near the green star.'

Thor's orange eyebrows lifted. 'I know you want to rescue the Rum Runner, Keith, but if they survived, Longbottle will have already taken them out of there through the shortcut.'

'Probably so, but that's not why I want to go back.' He looked over at Rhombus. 'You were right a few minutes ago, my rolling friend. I've got to keep my priorities straight. Contact with other life is why Starplex was built in the first place. I'm not going to let the Commonwealth become like the Slammers, cutting off all communication because of a misunderstanding. I want to talk to the darmats again.'

'They tried to kill us,' said Thor.

Keith raised a hand. 'I'm not feel enough to give them a second chance to toss us into the green star. Can you plot a course that will bring us out of the shortcut, whip us around that star, then bring us back to the shortcut, diving through on a vector that will take us out at the Flatland 368A exit?'

Thor considered for a moment. 'I can do that, yes. But F368A? Not New Beijing?'

'For all we know, the attack on Starplex was not an isolated event. New Beijing may be under siege. I want to go to a neutral location.'

A pause. 'Now, with the course I've described, will the darmats be able to grab us again?'

Thor shook his head. 'Not at the speed we'll be going, unless they're all lying in wait for us just outside the exit.'

'Rhombus,' said Keith, 'as soon as Lianne's got the appropriate systems back on-line, send a probe through to the green-star exit. Include a hyperspace scanner on it so you can locate the darmats by the dents they make in spacetime. Also, have it do a wide-spectrum radio scan, in case Waldahud reinforcements have arrived. And' — Keith tried to keep his voice calm — 'have it check for the Rum Runner's transponder code.'

'It'll be at least thirty minutes before we can do that,' said Lianne.

Keith pursed his lips, and thought about Rissa. If she were gone, it would take all the billions of years he had left to get over the loss.

He looked at the smudges of galactic light against the abyss. He didn't even know which direction to look in, which way to concentrate his thoughts. He felt incredibly small, insignificant, and lonely beyond belief.

There was nothing to focus on in the holo bubble — nothing sharp, nothing well defined. Just an abyss — an