'Parched land!' swore Jag. 'It's trapped.'
'Agree — caught in the net.'
And indeed it was. The baby darmat had obviously stumbled out of the shortcut only a few days before this blue star had arrived, and the star had been expelled from the exit in approximately the same direction as the darmat. As they'd all discovered to their shock, a darmat could move with surprising agility for a free-floating world, but the gravity of a star was enormous. The baby was only forty million kilometers from its surface — less than Mercury's distance from Sol.
'There is no way it can manage escape velocity,' said Jag. 'I'm not even sure it's managed to settle into orbit; it may be spiraling in. Either way, though, that darmat is not going anywhere.'
'Will signal,' said Longbottle — and he set the ship's transmitter to broadcast the prerecorded message on all the frequencies that the members of the darmat community had used.
They were about three hundred million kilometers from the star; the signals took over fifteen minutes to reach the darmat, and the quickest any reply could be received would be another fifteen minutes after that.
They waited, Jag fidgeting, Longbottle amusing himself by painting a sonar caricature of Jag as he fidgeted. But no reply was received.
'Well,' said the Waldahud, 'there's so much radio noise coming from the star, we might not be able to pick up the darmat's transmission. Or it might not be able to hear us.'
'Or,' said Longbottle, 'darmat may be dead.'
Jag made a noise like bubble wrap being burst, his snout vibrating as he did so. That was the one possibility he didn't want to consider.
But the heat that close to the star would be incredible. The side of the darmat facing it might be over 350 degrees Celsius, hot enough to melt lead. Neither Jag nor Delacorte had yet worked out all the particulars of luster-quark meta-chemistry, but many normal complex molecules broke down when heated that high.
Another thought occurred to Jag. What, if any, funereal customs would the darmats have? Would they want this world-sized corpse brought home?
He glanced at Longbottle.
Dolphins just let the body float away when one of their own died. Jag hoped the darmats would be equally sensible.
'Let's head back,' said Jag. 'There's nothing we can do on our own.'
The Rum Runner zoomed toward the shortcut in one of Longbottle's patented sweeping curves, hitting the point at the precise angle required to exit where they'd started all those jumps ago. Starplex was there, floating against the night, tinged green by the light of the fourth-generation star.
Beyond it were the dark-matter beings, tendrils of gas stretching between them. The question now was what to do next. For one brief moment, Jag sympathized with Lansing.
He wouldn't want to swim the choppy waters of the river that now spread out before the human.
Keith was in his apartment, preparing to leave for his upcoming meeting with Premier Kenyatta at Grand Central Station.
An electric bleep sounded. 'Rhombus would like to see you,' announced PHANTOM. 'He requests seven minutes of your time.'
Rhombus? Here? Keith really felt like being alone just now. He was marshaling his thoughts, trying to decide what to say in the meeting.
Still, having an Ib disturb him at home was unusual enough to pique his curiosity. 'The time is granted,' said Keith — the appropriate answer dictated by Ibese manners.
PHANTOM again: 'Since you are going to have an Ib visitor, may I dim the lights?'
Keith nodded. The ceiling panels decreased their intensity, and the glaring white glacier in the wall hologram of Lake Louise turned a muted gray. The double-pocket door slid aside and Rhombus rolled in.
Lights flashed on his web.
'Hello, Keith.'
'Hello, Rhombus. What can I do for you?'
'Forgive me for intruding,' said the pleasant British voice, 'but you were quite angry on the bridge today.'
Keith frowned. 'Sorry if I was harsh,' said Keith. 'I'm furious with Jag — but I shouldn't have taken it out on anyone else.'
'Oh, your anger seemed quite focused. I doubt you gave offense.'
Keith lifted his eyebrows. 'Then what's the problem?'
Rhombus was quiet for a moment, then: 'Have you ever wondered about the apparent contradiction my race represents? We are obsessed, you humans say, with time. We hate to waste it. But we nonetheless spend time on being polite, and, as many humans have noted, we take pains not to hurt feelings.'
Keith nodded. 'I've wondered about that. Seems that wasting time on social niceties would take away from more important tasks.'
'Precisely,' said Rhombus. 'Precisely the way a human would see it. But we do not perceive it that way at all. We see getting along as going — well, our metaphor is 'hub in wheel,' but you'd say 'hand in hand' — with a philosophy of not wasting time. A brief but unpleasant meeting ends up squandering more time than a longer but agreeable one.'
'Why?'
'Because after an unpleasant encounter, one spends much time going over the meeting in one's mind, replaying it again and again, often seething over the things that were said or done.' He paused. 'You've seen with Boxcar that under Ibese jurisprudence, we punish direct wastings of time. If an Ib wastes ten minutes of my time, the courts may order that Ib's life shortened by ten minutes. But did you know that if an Ib upsets me through rudeness or ingratitude or deliberate maliciousness, the courts may impose a penalty of sixteen times the amount of time apparently wasted over the issue? We use a multiple of sixteen simply because, like the Waldahudin, that number is the base for our system of counting; there really is no way to quantify the time actually wasted mulling over an unpleasant experience.
Years later, painful memories can — again, metaphors fail me. I would say 'roll up beside you'; you'd probably say 'rear their ugly head.'
It is always better to leave a situation on pleasant terms, without rancor.'
'You're saying we should really put the screws to the Waldahudin? Get back sixteen times what they did to us in damages?'
Keith nodded. 'That certainly makes sense.'
'No, you miss my meaning — doubtless due to my lack of clarity in expressing it. I'm saying forget about what has transpired between you and Jag, and between Earth and Rehbollo. I despair over how much of your mental resources — how much of your time — you humans will waste over these issues. No matter how bumpy the terrain, smooth it in your mind.'
Rhombus paused for a moment, letting this sink in, then: 'Well, I've used the seven minutes you granted me; I should leave now.' The Ib began to roll away.
'People have died,' said Keith, raising his voice. 'It's not that easy to smooth it all out.'
Rhombus stopped. 'If it is difficult, it is only because you choose for it to be that way,' he said. 'Can you foresee any solution that will bring the dead back to life? Any reprisals that won't result in more people dead?' Lights played across his web. 'Let it go.'
ETA DRACONIS
Glass looked at Keith, and Keith looked at Glass. Something in the being's manner told Keith this would be their final conversation.
'You mentioned during your introductory speech that your Commonwealth currently consists of three home-worlds,' said Glass.
Keith nodded. 'That's right,' he said. 'Earth, Rehbollo, and Flatland.'
