Starborne

have actually been looking at the direct data from Planet B have already understood that those expectations are doomed to be dashed, and they are starting to wonder how their fellow voyagers are going to react to the extreme disappointment that they have set up for themselves.

The year-captain says to Huw, finally, “Do you think the damned place can possibly be of any use to us?”

“Who can tell, unless we go down for a look?”

“I can tell from here. So can you. You know you can.”

Huw acknowledges the point with the most minute of nods. “It seems definitely unusual, I admit.”

“Too hot for us. No useful metals. No free water. Some kind of probably impenetrable jungle covering the whole thing.”

“We’ve come a long way to find it. Are we just going to move along without even sending out a drone probe?” Huw asks.

Once again the year-captain falls into unresponsiveness.

Huw says, “And, truth to tell, a drone probe isn’t what I have in mind. We need to get someone down there and check out Giovanna’s theory about the angels.”

“What theory is that?”

“You don’t remember? That the angels want us to get out of their territory altogether, and so they’ve not only fouled up Noelle’s transmissions but also did that job on Marcus and Giovanna and me when we landed on Planet B.”

The year-captain has locked himself behind some sort of wall and will not come out. “The very existence of these so-called angels is an unproven concept at this point,” he says.

“So it is, old brother. But by landing a couple of people on this planet in front of us, we can at least begin to get some determination of whether it’s going to be possible for us to occupy any planet at all without somehow first obtaining the blessing of these troublesome beings. If they exist, that is. What I’m saying is that if some of us go down there and wedon’t happen to hit the same problems that were encountered on —”

“I know what you’re saying, Huw.”

“We need to go and find out, wouldn’t you agree?”

The year-captain shuts his eyes for a moment. “Who do you propose for such a mission, then?”

“You, of course. Now that you have the legal right to go. And yet you don’t seem to want to, which I confess I can’t understand at all, old brother. You ought to be climbing all over yourself in your hurry to get down there.”

“I want to go, yes. If anyone goes. But the planet is probably useless for our purposes. Is it not a waste of time and perhaps lives to bother looking at it at close range? — Who else would you want to suggest for the mission?”

“Myself.”

“Yes. That goes without saying, Huw. Who else?”

“Nobody else.”

“Just you and me?”

“That’s right, old brother.”

“You argued for the necessity of a three-person expedition to Planet A’s surface,” the year-captain says.

“So I did. But just the two of us was enough for Titan and Ganymede and Callisto,” Huw replies. “We should be able to manage things pretty well by ourselves here too. We don’t need to put anyone else at risk. Look here, old brother, let’s send a probe down today and take some samples. And then you and I will descend and expose ourselves to whatever spooks may be in charge of things down there, unless there are no spooks, in which case we can begin to assume that even though Planet A flamed out for us, there is no reason to expect the same effects everyplace we happen to wander. What do you say, captain-sir, old brother?”

“Let me think about it,” the year-captain says.

In fact the year-captain most passionately wants to visit the surface of Planet B, and has been in the grip of that passion since long before the Wotan ’s latest emergence from nospace. He has been fighting against the idea, though, because he knows that his desire is a purely selfish one, and he feels that he’s had his quota of selfishness for the time being.

Obviously the planet is useless for the purposes of colonization. The year-captain knows that already, even if most of his fellow voyagers don’t. It has some bare possibility of being suitable for human habitation, yes, but the year-captain is certain even without first-hand on-site data that life down there would be endlessly difficult, uncomfortable, and challenging for them. A certain degree of challenge is a valuable stimulus to the growth of civilization, he realizes, but there is a point beyond that at which the human spirit is simply crushed by overwhelming struggle. That is what probably would happen here, the year-captain thinks. Better to write the place off without bothering with it further, and go in search of some other, less difficult, world.

And yet — and yet—

A planet, a unique unknown planet right out there within his grasp, a planet that beyond much doubt has given rise tosome sort of life-form completely beyond human experience—

He wants it. He can’t deny it to himself, not after the battle to win the right to take part in reconnaissance missions outside the ship. And, in the end, he allows Huw’s use of Giovanna’s variant on the angel theory to sway his decision. They do need to find out whether some omnipotent external force has decided to block their access to the worlds of space, and a landing on Planet B would shed a little light on that. Might shed some, anyway. A positive finding in that area might help to compensate for the letdown that people are going to feel when Planet B fizzles out, as the year-captain is sure it will, as a potential settlement site. So he authorizes the sending of one of the drone probes to collect a little more direct information about conditions down there, and lets it be known that a follow-up manned expedition will be the next step, if warranted by the drone’s findings.

Huw, operating the drone by remote control, puts it in an orbit a thousand kilometers outside Planet B’s murky atmosphere and does some infrared eyeballing to get a clue to what’s underneath the cloud layer. His cameras are capable of peeling away thicker fog than that, and they pierce right through, providing him with new mystifications.

“Look there,” he tells the year-captain. “Those hot lines everywhere. It’s like a big ball of twine down there. Or a lot of rubber bands wound round and round the whole place.”

“Vines, I think,” the year-captain says.

“A planet entirely tied up in a wrapping of vines? Vines two hundred kilometers thick?”

“We’ll need to take a closer look at it,” the year-captain says.

“I already have.” Huw kicks the imaging magnification up a couple of levels and cuts in an ultraviolet filter. “Now we’re looking just below the surface. You see the dark lines between the hot ones?”

“Tunnels?” the year-captain suggests.

“Tunnels, yes, I’d say.” Huw indicates the infrared readings. “And things moving in the tunnels, no?”

The year-captain peers closely at the screen’s blue-green surface. Dots of hot purple light, the purple indicating a temperature different from the temperature of the tightly wound lines, are slowly traversing the long darknesses that they have identified as tunnels.

“How big, would you guess?” he asks.

Huw shrugs. “Twenty meters long? Fifty? Big things, anyway. Very big. I don’t think we have a civilization down there, old brother, but I think we do have something.”

“Which requires investigation.”

“Absolutely.”

Huw grins. The year-captain does not. They understand each other, though. They will be shameless. Irresponsible, even. This is a useless world. But they want to see what’s down there; and so they will. They have earned the right. Curiosities must be satisfied. And — who knows? — they may even be able to answer some questions that very much need to be answered before the expedition can proceed to its next destination.

So the word goes forth to the ship’s community that it has been determined that a landing is desirable — no details aboutwhy that might be felt to be a good idea — and therefore a landing will be made, and that Huw and the year-captain will be the landing party, and Huw sets about once more readying one of