Keith thought for a moment. Damn, he hated being pushed. But the bloody pi— but Jag was right. 'Okay,' he said. 'Okay — you and Longbottle, if he's up to it. Is the Rum Runner in any condition for another mission?'
'Dr. Cervantes and Longbottle had it serviced at Grand Central,' said the Waldahud. 'Rhombus has confirmed that it is spaceworthy.'
Keith looked up. 'Intercom: Keith to Thor.'
A hologram of Thoraid Magnor's head appeared floating above Keith's desk. 'Yes, boss?'
'How are we for travel through the shortcut?'
'No problems,' said Thor. 'The green star is far enough from it now to allow just about any entrance angle. You want me to program a run?'
Keith shook his head. 'Not for the whole ship. Just for the Rum Runner and a one-person travel pod. I'm going to have to return to Grand Central for a meeting with Premier Kenyatta.' He looked back at the Waldahud. 'Despite what you just said, Jag, there's going to be hell to pay.'
It was the ultimate grand tour: around the galaxy in twenty shortcuts — a quick survey of all the active exit points. The Rum Runner, with Jag and Longbottle aboard, zoomed away from Starplex's docks and, after Longbottle's requisite joyride, headed for the shortcut.
As always, the exit point expanded as the ship touched it.
The purple discontinuity moved from bow to stern, and then the ship was zooming through a different sector of space.
There were no spectacular sights to be seen at this first exit: just stars, somewhat less densely packed than they had been on the other side.
Jag was intent on his instruments. He was doing a hyperspace scan, looking for any large mass within a light-day of the exit. Finding the darmat child would be hard. Dark matter, by its very nature, was very difficult to detect — all but invisible, and the radio signals it put out were very weak indeed. But even a baby darmat was going to mass 1037 kilograms. It would make a dent in local spacetime that should be detectable in hyperspace.
'Anything?' asked Longbottle.
Jag moved his lower shoulders.
Longbottle arched in his tank, and the Rum Runner curved back toward the shortcut.
'Again we go,' said the dolphin. The ship dived toward the point — and popped out near a beautiful binary star system, streamers of gas flowing from a bloated, oblate red giant toward a tiny blue companion.
Jag consulted his instruments. Nothing. The Rum Runner did a loop-the-loop and came down upon the shortcut from above, diving through, a burst of Soderstrom radiation washing over the ship, the spectacle of the binary pair being replaced by a new starscape, with a great yellow-and-pink nebula covering half the sky, a pulsar at its heart cycling dim and bright over a period of a few seconds.
'Nothing,' said Jag.
Longbottle arched again, and plunged toward the shortcut.
An expanding point.
A ring of purple.
Mismatched starfields.
Another sector of space. A sector dominated by another green star pulling away from the shortcut.
Longbottle maneuvered furiously to avoid it.
Jag's scan took longer; the nearby star overwhelmed the hyperspace scanner. But, finally, he determined the darmat child was not there.
Longbottle rotated in his tank, and the Rum Runner did a corkscrew flight back into the shortcut. When they popped out this time, it was through Shortcut Prime, near the galactic core, the initial shortcut that had presumably been activated by the shortcut makers themselves.
The sky blazed with the light of countless tightly packed red suns.
Longbottle nosed a control, and the ship's shields increased to maximum.
They were close enough to the heart of the galaxy to see the comscating edge of the violet accretion disk surrounding the central black hole.
'Not here,' said Jag.
Longbottle maneuvered the ship back to the shortcut in a simple straight line. They hadn't been close enough to be caught by the singularity's ravenous gravity, but he was taking no chances.
They next exited into another seemingly empty region of space, but Jag's hyperspace scanners indicated the presence of substantial concealed mass.
'Suppose not do you?' asked Longbottle.
Jag shrugged all four shoulders. 'It couldn't hurt to check,' he said, adjusting the shipboard radio to search near the twenty-one-centimeter band.
'Ninety-three separate frequencies currently in use,' said Jag. 'Another community of darmats.'
They were tens of thousands of light-years from the first darmats they had encountered, but, then again, the darmat race was billions of years old. It was possible that they all spoke the same language. Jag scanned the cacophony, found the topmost frequency group, and, since there were no vacancies, transmitted just above it. 'We are looking for one called Junior' — the ship's computer substituted the baby's real name.
There was silence for a lot longer than round-trip message time would require, but then, finally, a reply did come through.
'No one here by that name. Who are you?'
'No time to chat — but we'll be back,' said Jag, and Longbottle turned the ship back toward the shortcut.
'Bet surprised them that did,' said the dolphin as they passed through the gateway.
This time they emerged near a planet about the size of Mars, and just as dry, but yellow rather than red. Its sun, a blue-white star, was visible in the distance, about twice the apparent diameter of Sol as seen from Earth. 'Nothing here,' said Jag.
Longbottle allowed himself the luxury of moving the Rum Runner in such a way that the bulk of the yellow planet precisely eclipsed the star.
The corona — mixing purple and navy and white — was gorgeous, and covered much more of the sky than the dolphin had expected. He and Jag basked in the sight for a moment, then they dived back through the shortcut.
This exit point had also recently had a star emerge from it, but it wasn't green. Rather, as at Tau Ceti, this one was a red dwarf, small and cool.
Jag consulted his scanners. 'Nothing.'
They dived through again, the shortcut opening like a purple-lipsticked mouth to accommodate them.
Pure blackness — no stars at all.
'A dust cloud,' said Jag, his fur dancing in surprise.
'Interesting — it wasn't here the last time anyone went through to this exit. Carbon grains mostly, although there are some complex molecules, too, including formaldehyde and even some amino acids, and — Cervantes will want to return here, I think. I'm picking up DNA.'
'In the cloud?' asked Longbottle, incredulous.
'In the cloud,' said Jag. 'Self-replicating molecules floating free in space.'
'But no darmat, correct?'
'Correct,' said Jag.
'A wonder for another time,' said Longbottle, and he spun the ship around, fired retros, and headed back through the shortcut.
A new sector of space — another one that had recently had a star erupt from it. This time the intruder was a blue type-O, with more purple sunspots than a fair-haired human had freckles in summer. The Rum Runner had emerged right on the edge of one of the Milky Way's spiral arms. To one side, the sky was thick with bright young stars; to the other, they were sparse. Overhead, a globular cluster was visible, a million ancient red suns packed together into a ball. And — 'Bingo,' said Jag — or, at least, he barked something that would be translated as that in English. 'There it is!'
'See do I,' agreed Longbottle. 'But…'
