Sundiver

7. INTERFERENCE

When Dr. Martine left her quarters and took service corridors to the E.T. Environments Section, she thought of herself as using discretion, not stealth. Pipes and communications cables clung, stapled, to the rough unfinished walls. The Hermetian stone glistened with condensation and gave off an odor of wet rock as her footsteps rang down the fused path ahead of her.

She arrived at a pressure-sealed door with a green overhead light, the back entrance to one alien’s residence. When she pressed the sensing cell next to it, the door opened immediately.

A bright, greenish-tinted light spilled out — the reproduced sunshine of a star many parsecs distant. She shielded her eyes with one hand while with the other she took a pair of sunglasses from her hip pouch, and put them on to look into the room.

On the walls she saw spiderweb tapestries of hanging gardens and of an alien city set on the edge of a mountain scarp. The city clung to the jagged cliff, shimmering as if viewed through a waterfall. Dr. Martine thought she could almost hear high pitched music, keening just above her aural range. Could that explain the shortness of her breath? Her jittery nerves?

Bubbacub rose from a cushioned pallet to greet her. His gray fur shone as he waddled forward on stubby legs. In the actinic light and one point five g-field of his apartment, Bubbacub lost whatever “cuteness” Martine had seen in him before. The Pil’s bowlegged stance spoke strength.

The alien’s mouth moved in short snaps. His voice, coming from the Vodor which hung from his neck, was smooth and resonant, although the words came clipped and separated. “Good. Glad you come.”

Martine was relieved. The Library Representative sounded relaxed. She bowed slightly.

“Greeting, Pil Bubbacub. I came to ask if you have had any further word from the Branch Library.”

Bubbacub displayed a mouth full of needle sharp teeth. “Come in and sit. Yes, good that you ask. I have a new fact. But come. Have food, drink first.”

Martine grimaced as she passed through the g-transition field of the threshold — always a disconcerting experience. Inside the room she felt as though she weighed seventy kilos.

“No. Thank you, I just ate. I will sit.” She selected a chair built for humans and carefully lowered herself into it. Seventy kilos was more than a person should weight.

The Pil sprawled back on his cushion across from her, his ursine head barely above the level of his feet. He regarded her with small black eyes.

“I have heard from La Paz by ma-ser. They say no thing on Sun Ghosts. No thing at all. It may not be se-man-tics at all. It may be the Branch is too small. It is small, small branch, as I saided. But some Hu-man Off-ic-ials will make much of the lack of a re-fer-ence.”

Martine shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry about it. This will only go to show that too little effort has been spent on the Library project. A bigger branch, like my group has been lobbying for all along, would surely have had results.”

“I sended for da-ta from Pil-a by time drop. There can be no con-fu-sion at a Main Branch!”

“That’s good,” Martine nodded. “What’s bothering me, though, is what Dwayne is going to do during this delay. He’s bubbling over with half cracked notions about how to communicate with the Ghosts. I’m afraid that in his stumbling around down there, he’ll find some way of offending the psi-creatures so badly that all of the Library’s wisdom won’t patch things up. It’s vital that Earth have good relations with its nearest neighbors!”

Bubbacub raised his head slightly and placed a short arm behind it. “You are mak-ing ef-forts to cure Dr. Kep-ler?”

“Of course,” she replied, stiffly. “Actually, I’m having trouble seeing how he escaped Probation all of this time. Dwayne’s mind is full of chaos, though I’ll admit his P-score is within the acceptance curves. He had a tachisto test on Earth.

“I think I’ve got him pretty well stabilized, now. But what’s driving me crazy is trying to figure out what his basic problem is. His manic depressive swings resemble the ‘glare madness’ of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, when society was almost wrecked by the psychic effects of environmental noise. It nearly tore apart industrial culture when it was at its peak and led to the period of repression people today euphemistically call ‘the Bureaucracy.’ ”

“Yes. I have readed of your race-es at-tempt at sui-cide. It seem to me that the time af-ter, of which you just spoke, was time of order and peace. But that not my af-fair. You are luck-y to be in-comp-e-tent even at sui-cide.

“But do not stray. What of Kep-ler?”

The Pil’s voice did not rise at the end of his question, but there was something he did with his snout… a curling of the folds that served instead of lips… that told when he was asking, no, demanding an answer. It sent a shiver down Dr. Martine’s spine.

He’s so arrogant, she thought. And everyone else seems to think it’s just a quirk of personality. Can they be blind to the power and the threat that this creature’s presence on Earth represents?

In their culture shock, they see a little manlike bear. Cute, event Are my boss and his friends on the Confederacy Council the only ones who recognize a demon from outer space when they see one?

And somehow it’s up to me to find out what it will take to propitiate the demon, while I keep Dwayne from shooting off his mouth, and try to be the one to come up with a sensible way to contact the Sun Ghosts! Ifni help your sister!

Bubbacub was still waiting for an answer.

“W-well, I do know that Dwayne is determined to crack the Sun Ghost’s secret without extraterrestrial help. Some of his crew are downright radical about it. I won’t go so far as to say that any of them are Skins, but their pride is running pretty stiff.”

“Can you keep him from do-ing rash things?” Bubbacub said. “He has broughted in ran-dom el-ements.”

“Like inviting Fagin and his friend Demwa? They seem to be harmless. Demwa’s experience with dolphins gives him a distant but plausible chance to be useful. And Fagin has a knack for getting along with alien races. The important thing is that Dwayne has someone to spill out his paranoid fantasies to. I’ll talk to Demwa and ask him to be sympathetic.”

Bubbacub sat up in a momentary writhing of arms and legs. He settled into a new position and looked straight into Martine’s eyes.

“I do not care about them. Fa-ginis a pass-ive ro-man-tic. Dem-wa looks like a fool. Like any friend of Fa-gin’s.

“No, I care more a-bout the two who now cause troub-le on the base. I did not know, when I came, that there was a chimp here who was made part of the staff. He and the journ-al-ist have been all claws since we hit dirt. The journ-al-ist is snubbed by the base crew and he makes lot of noise. And the Chip keeps at Cul-la all time… trying to ‘lib-er-ate’ him, so…”

“Has Culla been disobedient? I thought his indenture was only…”

Bubbacub leapt from his seat, pointy teeth bared in a hiss.

“Do not interrupt, human!” Bubbacub’s real voice became audible for the first time in Martine’s memory, a high pitched squeak above the roar of the Vodor that hurt her ears.

For a moment, Martine was too stunned to move.

Bubbacub’s taut stance began to relax by degrees. In a minute the stiff brush of fur was almost smooth again.

“I apo-log-ize, human-Mar-tine. I should not fluff-up to such minor breach by one of mere in-fant race.”

Martine let her breath out, trying not to make a sound.

Bubbacub sat once again. “To answer your question, no, Cul-la not out of place. He does know his species will be in-den-tured to mine by Paren-tal right for long time.

“Still, it bad that this Doc-tor Jeff-rey does push this myth of rights with-out duties. You humans must learn to keep your pets in line, for it on-ly by good grace of we old ones that they are called cli-ent soph-onts at all.

“And if they not be sophonts, where would you be, hu-man?”

Bubbacub’s teeth shone brightly-for a moment then he closed his mouth with a snap.

Martine felt very dry in the throat. She chose her words carefully. “I’m sorry about any offense you may have taken, Pil Bubbacub. I will speak to Dwayne and maybe he can get Jeffrey to ease off.”

“And the journ-al-ist?”

“Yes, I’ll talk to Pierre also. I’m sure he doesn’t mean any harm. He won’t cause any more trouble.”

“That would be well,” Bubbacub’s voicebox said softly. He allowed his stocky body to settle once more into a slouch.

“We have great com-mon goals, you and I. I hope we can work as one. But know this: our means may dif-fer. Please do what you can or I be forced to, as you say, kill two birds with one stone.”

Martine nodded again, weakly.

8. REFLECTION

Jacob let his mind wander as LaRoque launched into one of his expositions. At any rate, the little man was now more interested in impressing Fagin than in winning any points with Jacob. Jacob wondered if it would be sinful anthropomorphizing to pity the E.T. for having to listen.

The three rode in a small car that moved through tunnels laterally as well as up and down. Two of Fagin’s root-pods gripped a low rail that ran a few centimeters off the floor. The two humans held onto another that circuited the car higher up.

Jacob listened with half an ear as the car glided on. LaRoque still bearded a topic he started back aboard the Bradbury: that the missing Patrons of Earth… those mythical beings who supposedly began the Uplift of man thousands of years ago, and then gave it up halfway finished… were somehow associated with the Sun. LaRoque thought the Sun Ghosts themselves might be that race.

“Then you have all of the references in the religions of Earth. Almost in every one the Sun is something holy! It is one of the common threads that runs through all cultures!”

LaRoque made an expansive gesture with his arms, as if to encompass the scope of his idea.

“It makes so much sense,” he said. “It would also explain why it is so difficult for the Library to trace our ancestry. Surely solar-type races have been known before… That is why this ‘research’ is so stupid. But they are undoubtedly rare and no one has yet thought to feed the Library this correlation which could solve two problems at once!”

The trouble was that the idea was so damned hard to refute. Jacob sighed inwardly. Of course many primitive Earth civilizations once had Sun cults. The Sun was so obviously the source of heat and light and life, a thing of miraculous power! It must be a common stage for a primitive people to pass through, to see animate properties in their star.

And there was the problem. The galaxy had few “primitive peoples” to compare to the human experience; mostly animals, pre-sentient hunter-gatherers (or analogous types), and fully uplifted sophont races. Hardly ever did an “in-between” case like man show up — apparently abandoned by its patron without the training to make its new sapiency work.

In such rare cases the newly potent minds were known to burst free of their ecological niche. They invented strange mockeries of science — bizarre rules of cause and effect, superstition and myth. Without the guiding hand of a patron, such “wolfling” races seldom lasted long. Humanity’s current notoriety was partly due to its survival.

The very lack of any other species with similar experience to compare with made generalizations easy to form and hard to refute. Since there were no other examples of species-wide indulgence in Sun-worship known to the small Branch in La Paz. LaRoque could maintain that those traditions of humanity recalled the Uplift that was never finished.

Jacob half listened for a moment longer just in case LaRoque said anything new. But mostly he let his mind drift.

It had been a long two days since the landing. He had had to get used to traversing from parts of the base that were gravity tuned to others in which the feathery pull of Mercury prevailed. There were many introductions to Base personnel, most of whose names he immediately forgot. Then Kepler had assigned someone to take him to his quarters.

The chief physician at Hermes Base turned out to be a Dolphin-Uplift bug. He was only too happy to examine Kepler’s prescriptions, expressing mystification that there were so many. Afterwards he insisted on throwing a party at which everyone in the medical department, it seemed, wanted to ask questions about Makakai. Between toasts, that is. For that matter there weren’t all that many questions after all.

Jacob’s mind moved a little slowly as the car came to rest and the doors slid open to the huge underground cavern where the Sunships were serviced and stored. Then, for a fleeting moment, it seemed that space itself was bending out of shape, and, worse yet, there was two of everybody!

The opposite wall of the Cavern seemed to bulge forward, up to a rounded bulb only a few meters away, directly across from him. There, where it was closest, stood a Kanten two and a half meters high, a small red-faced human, and a tall, stocky, dark complexioned man who stared back at him with one of the stupidest expressions he’d ever seen.

Jacob suddenly realized that he was looking at the hull of a Sunship, the most perfect mirror in the solar system. The amazed man opposite him, with the obvious hangover, was his own reflection.

The twenty-meter spherical ship was so good a mirror that it was difficult to define its shape. Only by noting the sharp discontinuity of the edge and the way reflected images swept away in an arc could he focus his eyes on something to be interpreted as a real object at all.

“Very pretty,” LaRoque admitted grudgingly. “Lovely, brave, misguided crystal.” He lifted his tiny camera-recorder and scanned it left to right.

“Most impressive,” Fagin added.

Yeah, Jacob thought. And big as houses, also.

Large as the ship was, the Cavern made it seem insignificant. The rough, rocky ceiling arched high overhead, disappearing in a misty fog of condensation.

Where they stood it was rather narrow, but it stretched to the right for a kilometer, at least, before curving out of sight.

.They stood on a platform which brought them even with the equator of the ship, above the working floor of the hangar. A small crowd stood down below, dwarfed by the silvery sphere.

Two hundred meters to the left stood a pair of massive vacuum doors, easily a hundred and fifty meters broad. Those, Jacob supposed, were part of the airlock that led, by tunnel, to the unfriendly surface of Mercury, where the giant interplanetary ships, such as the Bradbury, rested in huge natural caves.

A ramp led down from the platform to the cavern floor below. At the bottom Kepler spoke with three men in overalls. Culla stood not far away. His companion was a well-dressed chimpanzee who sported a monocle and stood on a chair to get even with Culla’s eyes.

The chimp jumped up and down with flexed knees and set the chair shivering. He tapped furiously at an instrument on his chest. The Pring diplomat watched with an expression that Jacob had learned to interpret as one of friendly respect. But there was something else in Culla’s stance that surprised him… an indolence, a looseness of posture, before the chimpanzee, that he had never seen the E.T. display in talking to a human or Kanten or Cynthian or, especially, a Pil.

Kepler greeted Fagin first then turned to Jacob.

“Glad you could make the tour, Mr. Demwa.” Kepler shook his hand with a firmness that surprised Jacob, then called the chimpanzee over to his side.

“This is Dr. Jeffrey, the first of his species to become a full member of a space research team, and one helluva fine worker. It’s his ship that we’ll be touring.”

Jeffrey smiled with the wry, unhinged grin characteristic of the superchimp species. Two centuries of genetic engineering had wrought changes in the skull and pelvic arch, changes modeled on the human form, as it was the easiest to duplicate. He looked like a very fuzzy, short brown man with long arms and huge buck teeth.

Another bit of engineering became evident when Jacob shook his hand. The chimpanzee’s fully opposable thumb pressed hard, as if to remind Jacob that it was there, the Mark of a man.

Where Bubbacub carried his Vodor, Jeffrey wore a device with black horizontal keys left and right. In the middle was a blank screen about twenty centimeters by ten.

The superchimp bowed and his fingers flew over the keys. Bright letters appeared on the screen.

I AM HAPPY TO MEET YOU. DOCTOR KEPLER TELLS ME YOU’RE ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS.

Jacob laughed. “Well thanks a lot, Jeff. I try to be, though I still don’t know what it is I’m going to be asked to do!”

Jeffrey gave the familiar shrieking chimpanzee laugh; then, for the first time, he spoke. “You will find out ssooonl”

It was almost a croak, but Jacob was amazed. Speech was still almost impossibly painful for this generation of superchimp, but Jeff’s words came out very clear.

“Dr. Jeffrey will take this, our newest Sunship, out on a dive shortly after we finish our tour,” Kepler said. “Just as soon as Commandant deSilva returns from reconnaissance in our other ship.

“Fm sorry the Commandant wasn’t here to meet us. when we arrived on the Bradbury. And now it seems that Jeff will be gone while we hold our briefings. It’ll add a dramatic touch, though, to get his first report just about the time we finish tomorrow afternoon.”

Kepler started to turn toward the ship. “Any introductions I’ve forgotten? Jeff, I know you’ve met Kant Fagin earlier. Pil Bubbacub appears to have declined our invitation. Have you met Mr. LaRoque?”

The chimp’s lips curled back in an expression of disgust. He snorted once and turned away to look at his own reflection in the Sunship.

LaRoque glared with hot-faced embarrassment.

Jacob had to hold back a laugh. No wonder the superchimps were called chips! For once, someone with less tact than LaRoque! The encounter between the two in the Refectory last night was already legend. He was sorry he’d missed it.

Culla laid a slender, six-fingered hand on Jeffrey’s sleeve. “Come, Friend-Jeffrey. Let ush show Mishter Demwa and hish friends your ship.” The chimp glanced sullenly at LaRoque then looked back at Culla and Jacob, and broke into a wide grin. He took one of Jacob’s hands and one of Culla’s and pulled them toward the entrance to the ship.

When the party reached the top of the other ramp they came to a short bridge that crossed a gap into the interior of the mirrored globe. It took a moment for Jacob’s eyes to adjust to the dark. Then he saw a flat deck which stretched from one end of the ship to the other.

It floated, a circular disk of dark springy material, at the equator of the ship. The only breaks in the flat surface were a half dozen or so acceleration couches, set flush with the deck at intervals around its perimeter, some with modest instrument panels, and a dome of seven meters diameter at the exact center.

Kepler knelt by a control panel and touched a switch. The wall of the ship’ became semi-transparent. Dimly, light from the cavern came in from all sides to illuminate the interior. Kepler explained that interior lighting was kept to a minimum to prevent internal reflections along the inner surface of the spherical shell, which might confuse both equipment and crew.

Inside the nearly perfect shell, the Sunship was like a solid model of the planet Saturn. The wide deck made up the “ring.” The “planet” protruded above and below the deck in two hemispheres. The upper hemisphere, which Jacob could see now, had several hatches and cabinets breaking its surface. He knew from his reading that the central sphere contained all of the machinery that ran the ship, including the timeflow controller, the gravity generator, and the refrigerator laser.

Jacob walked to the edge of the deck. It floated on a field of force, four or five feet away from the curving hull, which arched high overhead with a curious lack of highlights or shadows.

He turned as his name was called. The tour group stood by a door in the “side of the dome. Kepler waved for him to join them.

“We’ll inspect the instrument hemisphere now. We call it ‘flip-side.’ Watch your step, it’s a gravity arc so don’t be too surprised.”

At the doorway, Jacob stood aside to let Fagin pass, but the E.T. indicated that he would rather stay above. A seven-foot tall Kanten in a seven-foot hatch wouldn’t be too comfortable at that. He followed Kepler inside.

And tried to duck out of the way! Kepler was above him, climbing a path that mounded just ahead, like part of a hill enclosed in bulkheads. He looked like he was about to fall over, judging from the angle of his body. Jacob couldn’t see how the scientist could keep his balance!

But Kepler kept walking up and over the elliptical path and disappeared over the short horizon. Jacob put his hand on the bulkheads to either side and took a tentative step.

He felt no lack of balance. His other foot moved forward again. Still perfectly upright. Another step. He looked back.

The doorway tilted toward him. Apparently the dome enclosed a pseudo-gravity field so tight that it could be wrapped around a mere few yards. The field was so smooth and complete that it fooled his inner ear. One of the workmen stood in the hatch grinning.

Jacob set his jaw and continued over the loop, trying not to think of himself as slowly turning upside down. He examined the signs on access plates on the walls and floor of his path. Halfway around he passed over a hatch with the words TIME-COMPRESSION ACCESS inscribed on it.

The ellipse ended in a gentle slope. Jacob felt right-side-up when he got to the doorway and he knew what to expect, but even so he groaned.

“Oh no!” He brought his hands to his eyes.

A few meters over his head the floor of the hangar stretched away in all directions. Men walked around the ship’s cradle like flies on a ceiling.

With a resigned sigh he walked out to join Kepler where the scientist stood at the edge of the deck, peering into the guts of a complicated machine. Kepler looked up and smiled.

“I was just exercising a boss’s privilege to poke and pry. Of course the ship has been fully checked out by now, but I like to look things over.” He patted the machine affectionately.

Kepler led Jacob to the edge of the deck, where the upside-down effect was even more pronounced. The foggy ceiling of the cavern was visible far “below” their feet.

“This is one of the multi-polarization cameras we set up soon after we first saw the Coherent Light Ghosts.” Kepler pointed to one of several identical machines that stood at intervals along the rim. “We were able to pick the Ghosts out from the jumbled light levels in the chromosphere because, no matter how the plane of polarization migrated, we were able to track it and show that the coherency of the light was real and stable with time.”

“Why are all of the cameras down here? I didn’t see any up above.”

“We found that live observers and machines interfered with each other when they rode on the same plane. For this and other reasons the” instruments line the edge of the plane down here, and us chickens ride on the other half.

“We can accommodate both, you see, by orienting the ship so the edge of the deck is aligned toward the phenomenon we wish to observe. It turned out to be an excellent’ compromise; since gravity is no problem, We can tilt in any angle and we can arrange for the point-of-view of both sentient and mechanical observers to be the same for later comparison.”

Jacob tried to imagine the ship, tipped at some angle and tossed about in the storms of the Sun’s atmosphere, while passengers and crew calmly watched.

“We’ve had a bit of trouble with this arrangement lately,” Kepler went on. “This newer, smaller ship Jeff will take down has had some modifications, so soon we hope… Ah! here come some friends…”

Culla and Jeffrey emerged from the doorway, the chimp’s half simian, half human face contorted in disdain.

He tapped at the chest display.

“LR SICK. NAUSEOUS GOING OVER RAMP. SKIRTED BASTARD.”

Culla spoke softly to the chimp. Jacob could barely overhear. “Shpeak with reshpect, Friend-Jeff. Mr. La-Roque ish human.”

Incensed, Jeffrey tapped out with frequent misspellings, that he had as much respect as’ the next chimp, but that he wasn’t about to toady up to any particular human, especially one who had no part in his species’ Uplift.

DO YOU REALLY HAV TO TAKE CRAP FROM BUBBACUB JUST BECAUS HIS ANCESTORS DID YOURS A FAVOR HALF A MILLION YEARS AGO?

The Pring’s eyes glowed. There was a flash of white between the thick lips. “Please, Friend-Jeff, I know you mean well, but Bubbacub ish my Patron. Hu-mansh have given your race freedom. My race must sherve. It ish the way of the world.”

Jeffrey sniffed. “We’ll see,” he croaked.

Kepler took Jeffrey aside, asking Culla to show Jacob around. Culla led Jacob to the other side of the hemisphere to show him the machine that allowed the ship to navigate like a bathysphere in the semi-fluid plasma of the solar atmosphere. He removed several panels to show Jacob the holographic memory units.

The Stasis Generator controlled the flow of tune and space through the body of the Sunship, so that the violent tossing of the chromosphere would seem a gentle rocking to those inside. The fundamental physics of the generator was still only partly understood by the scientists of Earth, though the government insisted that it be built by human hands.

Culla’s eyes glowed and his lisping voice revealed pride in the new technologies brought to Earth by the Library.

The logic banks controlling the generator looked like a jumble of glassy filaments. Culla explained that the rods and fibers stored optical information far more densely than any previous Earth technology, and responded more quickly. Blue interference patterns ran up and down the nearest rod, as they watched, flickering packets of lambient data. It seemed to Jacob that there was something almost alive in the machine. The laser input-output swung aside under Culla’s touch and they both stared for minutes at the raw pulsing information that was the machine’s blood.

Though he must have seen the computer’s bowels hundreds of times, Culla seemed as enthralled as Jacob, meditating fixedly with those bright, unblinking eyes.

Finally, Culla replaced the cover. Jacob noticed that the E.T. looked tired. Must be working too hard, he thought. They spoke little as they walked slowly back around the dome to rejoin Jeffrey and Kepler.

Jacob listened with interest, but little comprehension, as the chimpanzee and his boss argued about some minor calibration of one of the cameras.

Jeffrey left then, claiming business on the Cavern floor, and Culla followed soon after. The two men remained for a few minutes, talking about the machinery, then Kepler motioned for Jacob to walk ahead as they made their way back around the loop.

When Jacob was about halfway around he heard a sudden commotion up ahead. Someone was shouting in anger. He tried to ignore what his eyes were telling him about the curving gravity-loop and quickened his pace. The path wasn’t meant to be taken quickly, though. For the first time he felt a confusing mixture of pulling sensations as different portions of the complicated field tugged at him.

At the top of the arc Jacob’s foot caught on a loose floor plate, scattering the plate and several bolts along the curving deck. He fought to keep his balance, but the unnerving perspective, midway around the curving path, made him stagger. By the time he made it gratefully to the hatch on the upper side of the deck, Kepler had caught up with him.

The shouting came from outside the ship.

At the base of the ramp Fagin waved his branches about in agitation. A number of base personnel ran toward LaRoque and Jeffrey, who stood locked in a wrestler’s embrace.

His face a deep red, LaRoque puffed and strained as he tried to pry Jeffrey’s hands off of his head. He made a fist and struck out to no apparent effect. The chimp screamed repeatedly and bared his teeth as he fought for a better grip to bring LaRoque’s head down to the level of his own. Neither noticed that a crowd had gathered. They ignored the arms that tried to pull them apart.

Hurrying to the bottom, Jacob saw LaRoque free one hand and reach for the camera that hung from a cord at his belt.

Jacob shoved through to the combatants. Without a pause he struck LaRoque’s grip free of the camera with the hard side of his hand and reached down with the other to grab the fur at the back of the chimpanzee’s head. He yanked back with all of his might and threw Jeffrey into the arms of Kepler and Culla.

Jeffrey struggled. The long powerful simian arms heaved against the grip of his captors. He tossed his head back and shrieked.

Jacob felt movement behind him. He swiveled and planted a palm on LaRoque’s chest as the man came rushing forward. The journalist’s feet flew out from beneath him and he landed with an “Oof!”

Jacob reached for the camera at LaRoque’s belt, just as the man grabbed for it. The cord parted with a snap. The men hauled LaRoque back as he struggled to his feet.

Jacob’s hands went up.

“Now stop it!” he shouted. He placed himself so that neither LaRoque nor Jeffrey could easily see the other. LaRoque nursed his hand, ignoring the crewmen who held his shoulders, and glared angrily.

Jeffrey still strained to get loose. Culla and Kepler held onto him tightly. Behind them Fagin whistled helplessly.

Jacob took the chimp’s face in his hands. Jeffrey snarled at him.

“Chimpanzee-Jeffrey, listen to me! I am Jacob Demwa. I am a human being. I am a supervisor with Project Uplift. I tell you now that you are behaving in an unseemly manner… you are acting like an animal!”

Jeffrey’s head jerked back as if slapped. He looked at Jacob dazedly for a moment, a snarl half formed, then the deep brown eyes unfocused. He sagged limp in the grip of Culla and Kepler.

Jacob held onto the furry head. With his other hand he stroked the ruffled fur back into place. Jeffrey shuddered.

“Now just relax,” he said gently. “Just try to collect yourself. We’ll all listen when you tell us what happened.”

Trembling, Jeffrey brought a hand to his speech display. It took him a few moments to slowly type, SORRY. He looked up at Jacob, meaning it.

“That’s fine,” Jacob said. “It takes a real man to apologize.”

Jeffrey straightened. With elaborate calmness he nodded to Kepler and to Culla. They released him and Jacob stepped back.

For all of his success in dealing with both dolphins and chimps at the Project, Jacob felt somewhat ashamed of the patronizing way in which he had spoken to Jeffrey. It had been a gamble that worked, to use Patronomy on the chimp-scientist. From what Jeffrey had said earlier, Jacob guessed that he kept a great deal of patron-esteem inside, but reserved it for some humans and not others. Jacob was glad he’d been able to tap that reserve, but not particularly proud of it.

Kepler took charge as soon as he saw that Jeffrey was calm.

“What the hell was going on here!” he shouted, glaring at LaRoque.

“The animal attacked me!” LaRoque cried. “I had just managed to conquer my fears and get out of that terrible place and I was talking to the honorable Fa-gin, when the beast leapt at me, lithe like a tiger, and I had to fight for my life!”

LIAR. HE WAS DOING SABOTAGE. I FOUND T.C. ACCESS PLATE LOOSE. FAGIN SAID THE CREEP ONLY CAME OUT WHEN HE HEARD US COMING.

“Apologies for my contradiction!” Fagin fluted. “I did not say the pejorative ‘Creep,’ I merely answered a query to state…”

“He sspent an hour in there!” Jeffrey interrupted aloud, grimacing at the effort.

Poor Fagin, Jacob thought.

“I told you before,” LaRoque shouted back. “That crazy place scared me! I spent half the time clutching the floor! Listen, you little ape, don’t cast your slurs on me. Save them for your tree-mates!”

The chip shrieked, and Culla and Kepler rushed forward to hold the two apart. Jacob walked over to Fagin, uncertain what to say.

Over the tumult the Kanten said to him, gently, “It appears that your patrons, whoever they might have been, Friend-Jacob, must have been unique, indeed.”

Jacob nodded numbly.

9. REMEMBERING THE GREAT AUK

Jacob studied the group at the foot of the ramp. Culla and Jeffrey, each in his own fashion, spoke earnestly with Fagin. A small group of base personnel gathered nearby… perhaps to escape LaRoque’s persistent questioning.

The man had stalked the Cavern ever since the altercation broke up, shooting questions at those at work and complaining to those who weren’t. For a while his rage at being deprived of his camera was awesome, only slowly declining to a state Jacob would call just short of apoplexy.

“I’m not sure why I took it from LaRoque,” Jacob said to Kepler, taking it out of his pocket. The slim black camera-recorder had a maze of tiny knobs and attachments. It looked like a perfect reporter’s tool, compact and flexible and obviously very expensive.

He handed it to Kepler. “I guess I thought he was reaching for a weapon.”

Kepler put the camera in his own pocket. “We’ll check that out anyway, just in case. In the meantime I’d like to thank you for the way you handled things.” Jacob shrugged. “Don’t make much of it. I’m sorry I stepped on your authority.”

Kepler laughed. “I’m glad as hell you did! I sure wouldn’t have known what to do!” Jacob smiled, but he still felt troubled. “What are you going to do now?” he asked. “Well, now I’m going to inspect Jeff’s T.C. system, to make certain nothing’s wrong, not that I think there is. Even if LaRoque poked around in the machine, what could he do? The circuits are all worked with special tools. He had none.”

“But the panel was loose when we came over the gravity arc.”

“Yes, but maybe LaRoque was just curious. In fact, I wouldn’t be too surprised to find out that Jeff loosened the plate to have an excuse to pick a fight with him!”

The scientist laughed, “Don’t look so shocked. Boys will be boys. And you know that even the most advanced chimp oscillates between extreme priggishness and schoolboy pranksterism.”

Jacob knew the truth of that. But still he wondered why Kepler was so generous in his attitude toward LaRoque, whom he undoubtedly despised. Was he that anxious for a good press?

Kepler repeated his thanks and left, picking up Culla and Jeffrey on his way back to the entrance of the Sunship. Jacob found a place where he wouldn’t be in the way and sat down on a shipping crate.

He drew a sheaf of papers from his inside jacket pocket.

Masergrams had arrived from Earth for many of the Bradbury passengers earlier in the day. Jacob had been hard put not to laugh when he caught the conspiratorial glances that passed between Bubbacub and Millie Martine when the Pil went to pick up his own coded message.

During breakfast she had sat between Bubbacub and LaRoque, trying to mediate the Earthman’s embarrassing Xenophilia with the Library Representative’s aloof suspicion. She appeared anxious to bridge the gap between them. But when the messages came LaRoque was left alone as she and Bubbacub hurried upstairs.

It probably hadn’t helped the journalist’s temper.

Jacob had finished his own meal and considered a visit to the Medical Lab, but instead went to pick up his own masergrams. Back in his rooms the Library material made a pile over a foot deep, which he placed on his desk before settling into a reading trance.

The reading trance was a technique for absorbing a lot of information in a short time. It had been useful many times in the past, the only disadvantage being that it cut off the critical faculties. The information would be stored, but the material would have to be read again normally for it all to be brought to mind.

When he came to, the papers were all stacked on the left. He was certain that they had all been read. The data he’d absorbed stalked at the edge of consciousness, isolated bits capriciously leaping to mind unbidden and as yet unconnected to a whole. For at least a week he would relearn, with a sense of deja vu, things read in the trance. If he didn’t want to be disoriented too long he’d better start wading through the stuff normally, soon.

Now, perched on the plastic packing crate In the Sunship Cavern, Jacob poked at random through the papers he’d bought. Teasing fragments of information read familiarly.

…The Kisa race, newly free from indenture to the Soro, discovered the planet Pila shortly after the recent migration of galactic culture to this quadrant. Traces were evident that the planet had been occupied by another transient race some two hundred million years before. Thus Pila was verified in Galactic Archives as having once been a residence, for six hundred millenia, of the Mellin Species, see listing; Mellin-extinct).

The planet Pila, having lain fallow for greater than the required period, was surveyed and routinely registered as a Kisa colony, Class C (temporary occupancy, no more than three million years, minimal impact on contemporary biosphere allowed).

On Pila, the Kisa found a pre-sophont species whose name is taken from the planet of their origin…

Jacob tried to picture the Pil race as it had been before the arrival of the Kisa and the beginning of their uplift. Primitive hunter-gatherers, no doubt. Would they have been the same today, after half a million years, if the Kisa had never come? Or would they have evolved, as some Earth anthropologists still insisted was possible, into a different kind of intelligent culture, without the influence of their patrons?

The cryptic reference to the extinct “Mellin” species brought home the time scale covered by the ancient civilization of the Galactics and their incredible Library. Two hundred million years! That long ago the planet Pila had been held by a spacefaring race, who had resided there for six thousand centuries while Bubbacub’s ancestors were insignificant little burrowing animals.

Presumably the Mellin paid their dues and had a Branch Library of their own. They offered proper respect (though perhaps more in word than in deed) to the patron race that had uplifted them long before they colonized Pila, and perhaps they, in turn, uplifted some promising species they found when they arrived… biological cousins to Bubbacub’s people… which by now had probably gone extinct as well.

Suddenly the strange Galactic Laws of Residence and Migration made sense to Jacob. They forced species to look upon their planets as temporary homes, to be held in trust for future races whose present form might be small and silly. Small wonder many of the Galactics frowned at humanity’s record on Earth. Only the influence of the Tymbrimi, and other friendly races had enabled humanity to purchase its own three colonies in Cygnus from the stodgy and environmentally fanatic Institute of Migration. And at that it had been fortunate that the Vesarius had returned with enough warning for human beings to bury the evidence of some of their crimes! Jacob was one of less than a hundred thousand human beings who knew that there had ever been such a thing as a Manatee, or a giant ground sloth, or an orangutang.

That Man’s victims might have someday become thinking species was something that he, more than most, was in a position to appreciate, and regret. Jacob thought of Makakai, of the whales, and how narrowly they were saved.

He brought up the papers and resumed his skimming. Another piece leapt into recognition as he read it. It had to do with Calla’s species.

…colonized by an expedition from Pila. (The Pila, having threatened their Kisa patrons with an appeal to Soro for a Jihad, had won release from their indenture.] Upon receiving their license to the planet Pring, the Pila undertook their occupancy with more than perfunctory attention to the minimal-impact provisions of their contract. Since the Pila arrival on Pring, inspectors from the Institute of Migration have observed that the Pila have taken greater than average safeguards to protect indigenous species whose pre-sophont potential seemed realistic. Among those in danger of extinction upon the establishment of the colony were the genetic ancestors of the Pring race whose species name is also that of the planet of their origin…

Jacob made a mental note to learn more about the Pilan Jihads. The Pila were aggressive conservatives in galactic politics. The Jihads, or “Holy Wars” were supposedly the last resort used to enforce tradition among the races of the galaxy. The Institutes served the traditions, but left enforcement to the opinion of the majority, or to the strongest.

Jacob felt sure that the Library references would be full of justified Holy Wars, with few “regrettable” cases of species using tradition as an excuse to wage war for power or for hate.

History is usually written by the winners.

He wondered on which grievance the Pila had won free of their indenture to the Kisa. He wondered what a Kisa looked like.

Jacob started as a loud bell rang, sending reverberations throughout the Cavern. Three more times it pealed, echoing off stone walls and bringing him to his feet. „

All the workmen in sight downed tools and turned to look at the mammoth doors which led, by airlock and tunnel, to the surface of the planet. With a low rumbling, the doors slowly parted. At first only blackness could be seen in the widening crack. Then something big and bright came up and nudged the separation from the other side, like a puppy bumping impatiently with its nose to hurry the opening and get inside.

It was another shiny mirrored bubble, like the one he had just toured, only larger. It floated above the tunnel floor as though insubstantial. The ship bobbed slightly in the air and, when the way was open, entered the lofty hangar as if blown in by a breeze from the outside. Reflections of rockwall, machinery, and people swam along its sides brightly.

As the ship approached, it emitted a faint humming and crackling sound. Workmen gathered at a nearby cradle.

Culla and Jeffrey rushed past Jacob as he watched, the chimpanzee flashing him a grin and waving for him to come along. Jacob smiled back and started to follow, folding his papers and slipping them into his pocket. He looked for Kepler. The Sundiver chief must have stayed aboard Jeffrey’s ship to finish the inspection, for he was nowhere in sight. The ship crackled and hissed as it maneuvered over its nest, and then began to descend slowly. It was hard to believe that it didn’t shine with light of its own, its mirrored surface gleamed so. Jacob stood near Fagin, at the edge of the crowd. They watched together as the ship came to rest.

“You appear to be deep within your thoughts,” Fagin fluted. “Please forgive the intrusion, but I judge that it is acceptable to inquire informally concerning their nature.”

Jacob was close enough to Fagin to pick up a faint odor, somewhat like oregano. The alien’s foliage rippled gently nearby.

“I suppose I was thinking about where this ship has just been,” he answered. “I was trying to imagine what it must be like, down there. I — I just can’t.”

“Do not feel frustrated, Jacob. I am similarly in awe, and incapable of comprehending what you of Earth have accomplished here. I await my first descent with humble anticipation.”

And so put me to shame again, you green bastard, Jacob thought. I’m still trying to find a way not to have to go on one of these crazy dives. And you blather about being anxious to go!

“I don’t want to call you a liar, Fagin, but I think you’re stretching diplomacy a bit by saying you’re impressed by this project. The technology is early stone age by galactic standards. And you can’t tell me no one has ever dived into a star before! There have been sophonts loose in the galaxy for almost a billion years. Everything worth doing has been done at least a trillion times!”

There was a vague bitterness in his voice as he spoke. The strength of his own feelings surprised Jacob.

“That is no doubt quite true, Friend-Jacob. I do not pretend that Sundiver is unique. Only that it is unique in my experience. The sentient races with whom I have contact have been satisfied to study their suns from a distance and to compare the results with Library standards. For me this is adventure in its truest form.”

A rectangular slice of the Sunship started to slide downward, to form a ramp to the cradle’s rim. Jacob frowned.

“But manned dives has to have been performed before! It’s such an obvious thing to try at some time or another if it’s proven possible! I can’t believe that we’re the first!”

“There is very little doubt, of course,” Fagin said slowly. “If no one else, then surely the Progenitors did this. For they did all things, it is said, before they departed. But so many things have been done, by so many peoples, it is very hard to ever know for certain.”

Jacob mulled over this in silence.

As the section of the Sunship neared the ramp, Kepler approached, smiling at Jacob and Fagin.

“Ah! There you are. Exciting, isn’t it? Everyone’s here! It’s this way every time someone gets back from the Sun, even for a short scout dive like this one was!”

“Yes,” Jacob said. “It’s very exciting. Um, there’s something I want to ask you. Doctor Kepler, If you have a moment. I was wondering if you’ve asked the Branch Library at La Paz for a reference on your Sun Ghosts. Surely someone else has encountered a similar phenomenon, and I’m sure it would be a big help to have…”

His voice fell away as he saw Kepler’s smile fade.

“That was the reason Culla was assigned to us in the first place, Mr. Demwa. This was going to be a prototype project to see how well we could mix independent research with limited help from the Library. The plan worked well when we were building the ships, I have to confess that the Galactic technology is something astounding. But since then the Library hasn’t been much help at all.

“It’s really very complicated. I was hoping to get into it tomorrow, after you’ve had a complete briefing, but you see…”

A loud cheer came from all around as the crowd surged forward. Kepler smiled resignedly.

“Later!” he shouted.

At the top of the cradle three men and two women waved at the cheering crowd. One of the women, tall and slender with a close cut of straight blonde hair, caught sight of Kepler and grinned. She started down and the rest of the crew followed.

This was apparently the Hermes Base commander Jacob had heard about from time to time during the last two days. One of the physicians at the party last night had called her the best Commandant the Confederacy outpost on Mercury ever had. A younger man had then interrupted the -old-timer with a comment that she was also “… a fox.” Jacob had assumed that the med-tech was referring to the commander’s mental skill. As he watched the woman she seemed hardly older than a girl] lithely stride down the steep ramp, he realized that the remark could easily have another complimentary meaning.

The crowd parted and the woman approached the Sundiver chief, hand outstretched.

“They’re there all right!” she said. “We went down to tau point two, in the first active region, and there they were! We got within eight hundred meters of one!

Jeff won’t have any trouble. It was the biggest herd of magrietovores I’ve ever seen!”

Jacob found her voice low and melodious. Confident. Her accent, though, was hard to place. Her pronunciation seemed quaint, old fashioned.

“Wonderful! Wonderful!” Kepler nodded. “Where there are sheep, there must be shepherds, eh?”

He took her arm and turned to introduce her to Fagin and Jacob.

“Sophonts, this is Helene deSilva, Confederacy Commandant here on Mercury, and my right-hand man. Couldn’t get along without her. Helene, this is Mr. Jacob Alvarez Demwa, the gentleman I told you about by maser. The Kanten Fagin, of course, you met some months back, on Earth. I understand you’ve exchanged a few masergrams since.”

Kepler touched the young woman’s arm. “I must run now, Helene. There are a few messages from Earth that have to be handled. I already put them off too long to be here for your arrival, so I’d better go now. You’re sure everything went smoothly and the crew is well rested?” “Sure, Dr. Kepler, everything’s great. We slept on the way back. I’ll meet you back here when it’s time to see Jeff off.”

The Sundiver chief made his salutations to Jacob and Fagin, and nodded curtly to LaRoque, who stood just close enough to overhear but not close enough to be civil. Kepler left in the direction of the elevators.

Helene deSilva had a way of bowing respectfully to Fagin that was warmer than most people could hug. She radiated delight at seeing the E.T. again, and redundantly said so as well.

“And this is Mr. Demwa,” she said as she shook Jacob’s hand. “Kant Fagin spoke of you. You’re the intrepid young fellow who dove the entire height of the Ecuador Needle to save it. That’s a story I insist on hearing from the hero himself!”

A part of Jacob winced, as always when the Needle was mentioned. He hid it behind a laugh.

“Believe me, that jump wasn’t made on purpose! In fact, I think I’d rather go on one of your little solar, toe-frying junkets than ever do that again!”

The woman laughed, but at the same time she looked at him strangely, with a certain appraising expression that Jacob found himself liking, although it confused him. He felt oddly at a loss for words.

“Um… anyway it’s a bit odd being called a ‘young fellow’ by someone as young as you appear to be. You must be a very competent person to have been offered a. command like this before any worry lines have shown.”

DeSilva laughed again. “How gallant! That’s very sweet of you, sir, but actually I have sixty-five years worth of invisible worry lines. I was a junior officer on Calypso. You may recall we got back in system a couple of years ago. I’m over ninety years old!”

“Oh!”

Starship crewmen were a very special breed. No matter what their subjective ages, they could pick their jobs when they came home… when they chose to keep working, that is.

“Well in that case, I really must treat you with the respect you’re due, Granny.”

DeSilva took a step back and cocked her head, look-big at him through wryly narrowed eyes. “Just don’t go too far the other way! I’ve worked too hard at becoming a woman, as well as an officer and a gentleman, to want to jump from ‘jail bait’ straight into social security. If the first attractive male to arrive in months who isn’t under my command starts thinking of me as unapproachable, I just might be persuaded to throw him in irons!”

Half of the woman’s referents were indecipherably archaic (what the devil was ‘jail bait’?), but somehow the meaning was clear. Jacob grinned and put up his hands in surrender — willingly enough,. Somehow, Helen deSilva reminded him a lot of Tania. The comparison was vague. There was an answering tremor, also vague and hard to identify. But it felt worth following.

Jacob shook aside the image. Philosophical-emotional bullshit. He was very good at that when he allowed himself. The plain fact was that the Base Commandant was an awful damned attractive fem!

“So be it,” he said. “And dammed be he who first says, ‘Hold, enough!’ ”

DeSilva laughed. She took him lightly by the arm and turned to Fagin.

“Come, I want you both to meet the dive crew…

Then we’ll be busy getting Jeffrey ready to leave. He’s terrible about good-byes. Even when going on a short dive like this one will be, he always bawls and hugs everyone who’s staying behind as if he’s never going to see them again!”