Warhorse

Roman shook his head in wonderment. First the space horse calvings, and now this.

Amity was indeed a charmed ship. “Rrin-saa, take a look at your display. Have the Tampies ever run into these things before?”

“I… do not know.”

Roman looked back at the intercom. There’d been an uncharacteristic hesitation there. “Rrin-saa?”

Another hesitation. “I know that others have claimed to have seen them; that is all.”

Roman glanced at Marlowe. “And what would those others say about them?” he asked Rrin-saa.

“They are said to be carrion eaters.”

Something hard settled into Roman’s stomach. “Quentin?”

“I do not know.”

Roman gritted his teeth. “Marlowe?”

“No sign of their emergency beacon yet,” the other said. “But their range here will be pretty restricted, with the solar wind that star’s blasting out and all.”

Roman nodded, forcing the fears back. Chances were that Quentin and the lander were perfectly safe. “Okay, Yamoto, you know where their theoretical entry point was. Figure us a spiral search path in toward it and feed the numbers to the Handler.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “Suggestion, Captain: instead of aiming for their Jump point, perhaps we should focus on the nearest section of the asteroid belt to that point.”

“The assumption being that all that exercise would have made Quentin hungry?” It was, Roman decided, a fair assumption. “Very good. Figure your course and let’s get started. Marlowe, you getting anything on our visitors yet?”

“It’s starting to come in, sir,” Marlowe told him. “Survey section computers are working on a—ah; here it is.” A fairly undetailed computer rendition of top, side, and bottom views appeared on Roman’s display.

Roman hunched forward to study them. Approximately eight meters across, the creatures were generally disk-shaped, with flat, roughly triangular wing-like appendages pointing outward in four directions from the edge, and with what looked like a single large feeding orifice and sensory ring taking up much of the flat underside. “Reminds me of a tailless manta ray,” he commented to no one in particular. “Rotated through ninety degrees to give it those other two wings. Odd that a creature that size has such a large feeding orifice.”

“I noticed that, too,” Marlowe nodded. “And you’ll note they’re staying solidly with us.”

Roman felt his forehead wrinkle as he called up a tactical display. Man o’ War had started its turn toward the asteroid belt now, and the creatures out there were indeed matching the maneuver. Staying directly in front of them, some twenty-seven kilometers out.

The hairs on the back of Roman’s neck began to tingle, just a little. Calling back the computer’s schematic of the creatures, he keyed his intercom for the survey section. A moment later Tenzing’s face appeared. “Yes, what is it?” he asked, sounding distracted.

“I wondered what you made of our visitors, Doctor,” Roman said.

“They’re beautiful,” Tenzing replied, his eyes watching something outside the range of the intercom camera. “A brand-new species of space-going creature. What else would you like to know?”

“I’m interested mainly if they could be predators.”

Tenzing looked back at the intercom camera, his expression a combination of impatience and a slightly supercilious amusement. “I’d say that was highly unlikely, Captain. What on earth would have given you that impression?”

“The relative size of the feeding orifice, for one thing,” Roman said, determined not to let the other make him feel like an idiot. “That, plus the fact that they’re sitting out there as if poised for attack.”

Tenzing shrugged. “I doubt the positioning’s significant,” he said, his shoulders shifting as he fiddled with his keyboard. “As to the size of the orifice, my guess is that the creature’s a sifter-type of feeder; floats through space and either just lets gravel and dust flow in or else telekenes it the last few centimeters from close range. That would explain those triangular body extentions, too: they could reach out and help scoop material in toward the center.”

“They could also be used to hold the thing against a space horse while it eats its way in,” Marlowe put in. “Captain, we’re reading some extra structure on those extensions now. Could be a cluster of octopus-type suction cups.”

Roman frowned at the revised schematic. “Dr. Tenzing? Comments?”

With an almost visible effort—a slightly resentful effort, at that—Tenzing tore his attention from his displays again. “Yes, they could be suction cups,” he conceded, a touch of professorial pique coloring his voice. “Or they could be any of a hundred other things. Maybe these creatures are the space-going version of remoras—hitchhiking fish that attach themselves to turtles or sharks or whatever for easy transport. But they’re most definitely, emphatically not predators, Captain—certain not on the level you’re obviously worried about. They’re far too small and fragile to even think of taking on anything as big as a space horse. Man o’ War could telekene them to shreds before they got halfway in.”

Roman rubbed his thumb and forefinger together thoughtfully. He had to admit the other’s arguments sounded reasonable enough. And yet… “But if they’re hoping to hitch a ride,” he asked slowly, “then why are they hanging so far back?”

“Maybe they’re not,” Tenzing countered impatiently, “Maybe it’s Man o’ War who’s holding them away. Captain, we’re really very busy down here, collecting data and all, so unless you have something else to discuss with me, I’d like to get back.”

“Of course, Doctor,” Roman said, forcing down his own a

The image vanished, and for a moment Roman glowered at the place where it had been. The size of Amity’s scientific section had been steadily shrinking as the ship’s missions had gradually shifted from straight survey work to survey-plusbreeding to straight breeding, and Tenzing’s resentment of the Starforce’s tinkering had risen with every cut. Roman could sympathize, but it didn’t make the man any easier to put up with.

His eyes drifted back to the visual display. There were at least twenty of the creatures out there; more, possibly, hidden in among the boulders that the group seemed to be lugging along with them. Tenzing’s last comment… Reaching over, he keyed the intercom for the Tampy section. “Rrin-saa?”

“I hear,” the alien said.

“Rrin-saa, is Man o’ War holding those things out there away from us?”

“He is not,” an off-camera voice answered. Hhom-jee, probably—he was on Handler duty at the moment.

So much for Tenzing’s remora theory. “Thank you,” Roman told him. He was just reaching for the off-switch—

“Rro-maa?”

“Yes, Hhom-jee?”

There was a long pause. “Rro-maa, Manawa

Roman stared at Rrin-saa’s unreadable alien face in the intercom screen. “What do you mean, afraid?” he asked carefully. “Afraid of what?”

Another pause. “I do not know.”

Roman pursed his lips, his eyes flicking to the visual display. Ramoras, Tenzing had called them. Harmless to a space horse… “Try and find out,” he told Hhomjee.

“Or see if you can get a location or direction or something.”

“Your wishes are ours,” Rrin-saa said.

Roman keyed off and looked over at Marlowe. “Full scan,” he ordered quietly. “I want you to take a good look at everything within ten thousand kilometers of us.”

“Yes, sir,” Marlowe nodded grimly, and turned to his task.

Roman shifted his gaze to Yamoto. “There’s a combat-operations file in the helm library,” he told her. “Dig it out and put it into standby.” He hesitated; but if the remoras were interested in Man o’ War… “And have engineering start the drive activation sequence.”

“Yes, sir.” If she understood the implications of that order, she hid it well.

And for the moment, Roman decided, that was all Amity could do. Until and unless they found Quentin and the lander here—