Raft

"Perhaps they were," Hollerbach observed drily. "Pallis would have liked that."

"I don't think any of us younger folk realized how green leaves could be. And the trees seem to be growing already. Soon we'll have a forest big enough to harvest, and we'll be able to move out: find whales, perhaps, fresh sources of food…"

Now Hollerbach began to fumble beneath his pallet; with Rees's help he retrieved a small package wrapped in grubby cloth.

"What's this?"

"Take it."

Rees unwrapped the cloth to expose a finely tooled machine the size of his cupped hands; at its heart a silver orb gleamed, and around the orb multicolored beads followed wire circles. "Your orrery," Rees said.

"I brought it in my personal effects."

Rees fingered the familiar gadget. Embarrassed, he said: "Do you want me to have it when you're gone?"

"No, damn it!" Hollerbach coughed indignantly. "Rees, your streak of sentimentality disturbs me. No, I wish now I'd left the bloody thing behind. Lad, I want you to destroy it. When you throw me out of that door send it after me."

Rees was shocked. "But why? It's the only orrery in the universe… literally irreplaceable."

"It means nothing!" The old eyes glittered. "Rees, the thing is a symbol of a lost past, a past we must disregard. We have clung to such tokens for far too long. Now we are creatures of this universe."

With sudden intensity the old man grabbed Rees's sleeve and seemed to be trying to pull himself upright. Rees, frowning, laid a hand on his shoulder and gently pressed him back. "Try to rest—"

"Bugger that," Hollerbach rasped. "I haven't time to waste on resting… You have to tell them—"

"What?"

"To spread. Fan out through this nebula. We've got to fill every niche we can find here; we can't rely on relics of an alien past any more. If we're to prosper we must become natives of this place, find ways to live here, using our own ingenuity and resources…" Another coughing jag broke up his words. "I want that population explosion we spoke of. We can't ever again risk the future of the race in a single ship, or even a single nebula. We have to fill this damn cloud, and go on to the other nebulae and fill them as well. I want not just thousands but millions of humans in this damn place, talking and squabbling and learning.

"And ships… we'll need new ships. I see trade between the inhabited nebulae, as if they were the legendary cities of old Earth. I see us finding a way even to visit the realms of the gravitic creatures…

"And I see us one day building a ship that will fly us back through Holder's Ring, the gateway to man's home universe. We'll return and tell our cousins there what became of us…" At last Hollerbach's energy was exhausted; the gray head slumped back against its rag pillow, eyes closing slowly.

When it was over Rees carried him to the port, the orrery wrapped in the stilled fingers. Silently he launched the body into the crisp air and watched it drift away until it was lost against the background of the falling stars; then, as Hollerbach had wished, he hurled the orrery into the sky. Within seconds it had vanished.

There was a warm mass at his side — Jaen, standing quietly with him. He took her hand, squeezing it gently, and his thoughts began to run along new, unexplored tracks. Now that the adventure was over perhaps he and Jaen might think about a new kind of life, of a home of their own—

Jaen gasped. She pointed. "My god… look."

Something came lunging out of the sky. It was a compact, pale green wheel of wood, like a tree six feet wide. It snapped to a halt mere yards from Rees's face and hovered there, maintaining its position with rapid flicks of rotation. Short, fat limbs snaked out of the trunk, and what looked like tools of wood and iron were fixed at various points to the rim. Rees searched in vain for the tree's tiny pilots.

"By the Bones, Rees," Jaen snapped, "what the hell is it?"

Four eyes, blue and shockingly human, snapped open in the upper surface of the trunk and fixed them with a stern gaze.

Rees gri

In fact, it might barely have begun.