Starrigger

19

The steward announced me. "Mr. McGraw, sir." I was admitted into the Captain's private dining room. It made the rest of the ship look like a tramp steamer by comparison. The walls were swaddled in gold fabric with red and white trim, hung with tasteful seascapes. The carpet was red and knee-high to a dwarf. Hanging above the broad expanse of table was an ornate crystal chandelier, throwing lambent light to glint off the silver service and the gold sconces. The china was pale chalk, probably porcelain, the tablecloth satin white and immaculate. I was impressed and stood at the door for a moment.

"Come in, Mr. McGraw." Captain Pendergast wiped his mouth delicately with a gold-colored napkin. "Please," he said, smiling warmly and gesturing to a chair. The other guests looked up at me. Darla, John, and company were there, but I recognized no one else except the redoubtable Mr. Krause. Darla and Susan were the only women.

"Sorry I'm late. Captain." I nodded to the other guests. Krause didn't look up.

"Not at all, Mr. McGraw. Please sit down."

Pendergast's dark blue eyes followed me until I was seated a few places down from him. I unfolded my napkin and laid it on my lap like a proper gentleman, then remembered that I don't like sitting at a table with a cloth draped over my knees, and put it back on the table.

"I suggest you try the seafood dish, Mr. McGraw. I do hope you like seafood."

"I wish you would call me Jake, Captain. Is it local?"

"As you like, Jake." His Intersystem was clipped and Teutonic, but with a Low Dutch broadness around the edges. "Yes, it's local catch. Some people consider it quite a delicacy, although its nutritional value is limited." The comers of his thin-lipped mouth curled upwards. "But we don't always eat to live. Do we?"

"I always enjoy eating," I answered, "and I always hope to live to eat again."

"Yes, it's a perilous universe," he said. 'To the natives this particular fish is pure poison. Strange, isn't it? If you don't care for it, we have a choice of entrees."

"I would like the fish," I told the steward standing patiently at my side. He left the room quietly. I turned to Pendergast. "You mentioned the natives. You can communicate with them?"

"With some difficulty, yes."

"What do you call them?"

"The name for their tribe… we like to call it a crew… is―" He barked twice, then smiled. "As you can see, the language barrier is formidable. Most English speakers call them Arfbarfs."

"Arfbarfs?"

At the other end of the table, Susan giggled into her wine.

"Yes, or Arfies, if you like. Properly speaking, they are Akwaterran Aboriginals, or simply Akwaterrans."

"Are they sentient?"

Pendergast stroked his dark beard. "I'll leave that judgment to the exopologists. Do have some wine, Jake."

A young officer to my left filled a long-stemmed glass. 'Tell me. Captain," I said. "What is the proper term for the…?" My Intersystem failed me, and I stumbled about for words.

"Would it be better for you if we spoke your native language, Jake?" Pendergast's English came out even better than his 'System. As usual, other people's language-hopping abilities made me feel sublingual.

"It'd be great," I said. 'Thanks, and I'm sorry for the trouble."

"It's nothing. I assume Intersystem isn't spoken on your home planet. Which was…?"

"Vishnu. No, it's either English or Hindustani."

"I see." He gave me a disapproving look. "But Intersystem is so easy to leam." He left it at that, and began eating again.

It made me feel wonderful. I took a long drink of the wine. It was flat and slightly sour.

"This is apropos of nothing," said a portly bald man in a pink formal suit across from me, "but did you know that the 'system' in Intersystem doesn't refer to solar systems?"

Eyes drifted toward him. "Really, Dr. Gutman?" said another young officer.

"Yes. Common misconception." Gutman cut with surgical precision into a breast of something vaguely avian. "It really refers to linguistic systems." He slipped a sliver of meat into his mouth and chewed slowly. "Everybody thinks planets," he said, more to himself than to anyone. Slowly, his gaze came around to me. "Don't you find that fascinating?"

"Enthralling," I said, and drained my wine glass.

"Jake, you wanted to know the proper term for something," the Captain said to crank the conversation back up again.

"Yes, the name for what your ship is riding on. The island-animal."

Pendergast had his fork poised above his plate, looking with some concern at his food. "We like to think of both metal and flesh as 'the ship.' STEWARD!"

The steward came through the hatch like a shot. Pendergast held up the plate as if it bore something putrid. "Tell Cookie that if I wanted my fish this well-done, I would have had the gunnery detail use it for target practice. Bring something edible."

"Yes, sir!"

"The Captain was telling us a few things about the ship when you-came in, Jake," John said to me. To Pendergast he said, "We were all wondering how the ship is.. uh, steered. Is that the right word?"

"It's so primitive," the Captain answered, "I'm almost embarrassed to tell you. We have a taut steel cable strung between the bridge and the bow, with the bow end implanted into the megaleviathan's skull. The helmsmen are Arfies who send signals along the cable by beating on it. They are under my direction, of course. However, for maneuvers like docking, we must rely completely on the pilot crew."

"Remarkable," John said. "Megaleviathan? Is that what you call the island-creature?"

"Like everything on Akwaterra," Dr. Gutman said, "or Splash, as most everyone calls it, there is no official name. Scientifically speaking, that is. We don't have the resources to fund science here."

"But we will one day," one of the fresh young officers said enthusiastically. "Right, Captain?"

"Let us hope, Mr. Ponsonby," the Captain said, buttering a roll. He looked in Krause's direction and did a take. "Mr. Krause! What's wrong with your lip? Run into a hatch?"

Everyone looked at Krause's fat purple lip. Krause wanted to run and hide, but mumbled something about an accident.

I thought it behooved me to do the charitable thing and rescue him. "Who's idea was it," I asked the Captain, "to use the beast as a ferryboat?"

"Mine," Pendergast said flatly. "There was a conventional vessel on this run before, and it was lost. Dr. Gutman said we can't underwrite scientific inquiry here. He's wrong in that:

We can ― if the knowledge gained is practical and useful. I headed the first expedition to study the megaleviathans. It was readily apparent to me that we could make an arrangement with the Arfies and use the beast to ship vehicles and passengers over this very important stretch of submerged Skyway." He took a sip of wine. "It was apparent when we learned that the mega feeds only once a year…"

"And just about swallows half an ocean when she does," one of the officers broke in, drawing a dark glance from Pendergast. "Sorry, sir," he said, and coughed quietly into his palm.

"For the rest of the time," the Captain went on, "the animal's digestive system is dormant ― by a factor of ninety percent. It took some doing to find the right analogs to Terran histamine H₂ inhibitors, which we use in shutting it down completely."

"Why didn't you just build another conventional vessel?"

Knowing smiles around the table.

"The seas are very dangerous here," Dr. Gutman said.

"Yes," I said. "We found that out when we went swimming back on the island."

Raised eyebrows all around.

"You were very lucky," Gutman said. "More wine, my dear?" he asked Darla.

"Yes, thank you."

"The animal's reproductive cycle must be an amazing thing," Roland said, anticipating my next question.

"It is," Pendergast said, "from what we know of it. But to answer your implied question… no, megas don't mate in the conventional sense. They're hermaphroditic, but there the similarity to Terran biology breaks down. Dr. Gutman, you're vastly more qualified to speak on the subject;"

Gutman went on at some length, lecturing on the sex life of the megaleviathan. No doubt the lecture was an old routine. All during it, I felt more eyes on me than there were on him, a feeling that had persisted since I sat down.

"… and at various intervals," Gutman was saying, "quite without any warning that we've been able to discover, the mega gives birth to a relatively small life form that looks somewhat like a Terran dolphin. It's the product of some kind of par-thenogenetic process which is also a complete mystery. The animal is born fully developed, 'and swims away. Sooner or later it comes wandering back and proceeds to swim up the main vaginal orifice of the mega, never to come out again. About a year after that happens, the mega disgorges an egg from the same opening. This sinks to the sea floor and buries itself in the mud. The egg is very large, by the way, about the size of an average house. Six years after that, from what we've observed, a new mega is hatched from the egg."

"Sounds as if the whole process is a closed loop, genetically speaking," Roland commented. "How do new genes find their way into the pool?"

"It's doubtful that a dolphinoid returns to fertilize the mega that birthed it, except by accident," Gutman said. "A simple tagging procedure would clear the matter up, but the little devils are frightfully hard to catch." He smiled wryly. "Besides, that's pure research, isn't it?"

"Well, if it's true, that opens the cycle up," Roland said. "Still, it's fascinating."

"Isn't it, though?"

"To me," Darla interjected, "the Arfbarfs are more interesting. I've been trying to think of a more striking example of interspecies cooperation. I don't think there is one in the known mazes."

"Strange you should say cooperation," Pendergast said. "Most

people assume the megas are simply beasts of burden, but their relationship with the Arfies is a classic symbiosis."

"Really?" John said. "How does the mega benefit? It's easy to see that the Arfbarfs―"

Susan convulsed with another bout of giggling. "Sorry," she said, red-faced. "It's that name." i

"Akwaterrans, then," John went on. "Living on one of these beasts should be very handy for an amphibious species ― but the mega?"

"I'll sum it up in one word," Pendergast said. "Barnacles."

"Barnacles?"

"The native equivalent. Marine crustaceans that attach themselves to the sides and keel of the beast. They're very prolific in these waters. Over a very short time they can weigh a mega down, and if the Akwaterrans didn't clean them off and eat them, the mega would eventually founder and sink."

"I see," John said, and sat back as another steward poured coffee.

My food finally came, just in time for dessert. I tasted the grayish-green mass of stuff on my plate. It was awful.

"That one looks underdone," Pendergast observed.

"It's adequate. But if it's all the same to you, I'm going to bypass the main course and head straight for dessert. Is that cherries jubilee?"

"Yes. Freeze-dried, I'm afraid, and the brandy's domestic."

"I'm patriotic at heart."

All during dinner, Darla had been stealing glances at me, trying to divine my mood. She must have been having a rough time, because I was riding an express elevator to the roof. The Purple Pyrotechnic Pill was kicking in.

Listless conversation went on among the other guests until Roland turned to the Captain and said, "You've explained why the Arfbarfs and megas get along, but how does the ship contribute to the arrangement? Or does it?"

"Let me offer my own one-word explanation," Gutman said, after having polished off his dessert in three gulps. "Food." He handed the empty bowl to the steward for seconds. "Surprised? You'd think that with a sea teeming with life there would be no problem. But there is. Arfie crews are stratified according to a division of labor. There's a crustacean-scraping class, a pilot class, a fishing class ― they need fish to supplement their diet ― a young-rearing class, various other smaller ones, including an officer class. As a result, relatively few Arfies gather food for the whole crew, and there is no crossing of class lines. Taboo. When the crew gets sociologically top-heavy, food-gathering becomes a problem. It's hard work scraping barnacles, as any swab can tell you. And as for fishing―"

"One-word explanation?" Pendergast scoffed. "I'll put it more simply, Mr. Yee. We won't scrape the keel for them, but we do help with the fishing, using nets, which the Arfies haven't got the hang of making yet. If you're an early riser, you might want-to watch us trawl tomorrow morning."

"Thank you. Captain," Gutman said dryly.

A siren wailed somewhere in the ship, making me jump a little. The elevator was shooting through the roof.

"A little after-dinner entertainment, ladies and gentlemen," Pendergast said. He rose and went over to a set of double hatches on the far bulkhead. He opened them and walked out onto a small lookout deck. We all got up and followed.

Searchlight beams were sweeping the island, lancing out into the sea-sprayed night, but bright moonlight clearly revealed what was happening. The island was being invaded^ by a writhing mass of red spaghetti. Crimson tentacles were snaking their way from the shore toward a cluster of dome-huts, and hundreds of Arfies were on them like ants, hacking and cutting with sharpened seashells. Even with their numbers the Arfies were having a hard time checking the monster's progress. More clumps of tentacles oozed over the shoreline, separated, and began to flop and wriggle their way inland. More amphibians flung themselves at these, chopping and slashing with abandon. It was a nightmarish scene, overhung with orange clouds glowing spectrally with light from a bloated ruddy moon. It was the first time I heard the Arfies barking. The sound was a three-way cross between a bullfrog, a dog, and a good human burp. Pendergast's imitation had been accurate to a point, though emphasizing the canine element.

"Don't took too long, ladies and gentlemen," Pendergast said. "The gaze of the gorgon squid will turn you to stone." Turning to me he said, "You can see why a conventional ship is vulnerable in these waters, even a hydroskiff. And this is an average-size gorgon."

More tentacles boiled in the water around at least a quarter of the island's perimeter, slithering up on shore and coming inland to join the battle.

"It looks big enough to give the mega trouble," I said.

He shook his head. "They're big, but not big enough to take down a mega. It's after the Arfies."

The Arfies were sustaining casualties. We could see struggling forms wrapped in tentacles being dragged over the edge. I heard a beeping sound and turned to see Pendergast take a small communicator out of his vest pocket.

"Port battery reports ready, sir."

"Very well. Hold your fire." He looked at me, noticing my surprise. "We don't like to intervene unless we have to," he explained. "It's a natural check on their population."

I'm sure the Arfies are all for ecology, I thought, but…

We watched for about five minutes. The Arfies fought the gorgon to a standstill for a short period, but slowly the monster gained the upper hand, even though hundreds of severed tentacles lay everywhere, twitching and leaking dark ichor. Finally, a gargantuan head rose from the water a short distance from shore, and then a polyhedral eye surfaced, its facets fired with reflected moonlight. Pendergast lifted the communicator. "Take it out," he said quietly.

"Aye aye, sir!"

An exciter bolt sizzled from the ship, coming from above us and to our left. The eye steamed, then exploded, its liquid humors gushing out and running viscously down the side of the head. A high-pitched gurgling yell split the night. The monster began to withdraw, dragging its mass of limp tentacles away from the horde of defending Arfies. Within a minute, the last of it had retreated into the water.

When it was all over and we were back inside, relaxing over brandy and cigars, I remarked to Pendergast, "I'd say there was no question that the Arfies are sentient. They're tool-users."

"Many species use tools," he said, sounding a little defensive, "even have language abilities ― Terran apes, for example, if you remember the old experiments in which they were taught sign languages ― but no one accuses them of being truly sentient. After all―"

"I wasn't making a political statement. Captain," I said to soothe whatever sore point I had touched. "It's also apparent that the Arfies have a definite niche here which humans can't compete for. No, I merely meant that it's hard to understand why the Skyway goes through here at all. It would seem that the Arfies have at least the potential to evolve into a technologically advanced race. Whoever built the Skyway seemed to want to avoid linking up worlds populated by advanced tool-users. None of the races we know have direct access to the Skyway from their homeworlds. The access portals are usually more than half a solar system away."

"I understand," Pendergast said, sipping brandy from a huge snifter. "But I can't give you a satisfactory answer."

"Which brings up another point," I went on. "To whom does this maze belong?"

Another sensitive area, if the strained expressions around the table were any indication.

"We think it may be a part of the original Terran Maze," Dr. Gutman said. "A lost part. I take it you've noticed we can breathe here unaided."

"So can some aliens. What makes you think it's a lost section of the Terran Maze?"

"What makes you doubt it?" Gutman riposted. "Surely not because it's so far removed from most of the Maze."

"I don't doubt it. I was merely asking." Gutman was right, but why was he being so touchy? It's true that as far as Euclidean space is concerned, mazes ramble all over the place, with some planets as much as a thousand light-years away from the home system.

"There is only one portal on Akwaterra," the Captain intervened. "However, there is another stretch of Skyway, also submerged, that leads to a dead end. No portal. We think it was the proposed site of the double-back portal to Seven Suns. You may be aware that there is an ingress spur on Seven Suns that no one seems to use."

"Could the portal be underwater?" I asked.

"No. It was never installed. Why not, is anyone's guess."

"Ran out of funds, no doubt," Gutman quipped, eyes atwin-kle. "The bond issue didn't pass."

"You seem to be all questions tonight, Jake," the Captain observed.

"I have one more, possibly more important." I gestured around the room. "Where does all this come from? You said the brandy is domestic. Does that imply that you can sometimes get imported? Imported from where, and by whom?"

"Congratulations," Pendergast said. "You've asked a question that never occurs to most luck-throughs. They see we have some home industries here, and they assume that all goods must be homemade. Take the titanium this ship is made of, as an example. We have domestic steel here, but we haven't been able to locate any rutile deposits. No doubt they're submerged. We lack many things here. But what we can't make, the Ryxx sell to us."

"The Ryxx?" John gasped. "You mean there's a way back to Ryxx Maze from here?"

"Not by Skyway. But through normal space, yes."

John looked at him blankly. "Normal space?"

I said, "Do you mean that the Ryxx haul goods here by Skyway and return by starship?"

"Yes." Pendergast lit a slender, bright-green cigar. "A remote world of theirs happens to lie only twelve light-years from one of ours, which makes it a hell of a long trip at sublight speeds, but they don't seem to mind." He smiled. "Nobody thinks much of space travel on the Skyway, not when you can get in your vehicle and drive ten parsecs without leaving the ground. But the Ryxx never gave up their development of interstellar travel. Gives them a competitive edge."

"What do they take back?" I asked.

"In the mood for riddles?" he asked with am impish grin. "What's yellow and looks like gold and is worth going a long way for?"

"I see." It made sense. Gold and a few other precious metals are always worth the trouble. "You have gold here, I take it."

Everybody laughed. "Yes," the Captain said, looking around at the lustrous walls. "You'd never know it, would you? Yes, we've plenty of it, but we can't eat it. Perfectly useless substance, which makes it a perfect medium of exchange, even among alien races."

A steward came in and whispered something into the Captain's ear. Pendergast looked at me.

"Seems there's a call for you at the desk, Jake."