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There was an excitement and a ring in Shensu's voice that made Benden's pulse quicken; he could see that Saraidh was also affected. Shensu's whole attitude was suffused with reverence and awe.
"We were just young boys, but our father came as often as he could and told us what was happening. He was always in touch with our mother. He even spoke to her just before—before that final mission." All the animation left Shensu, and his expression assumed its habitual taciturnity. "He was brutally murdered just when he might have made the discovery which would have ended Threadfall and preserved the whole colony."
"By this Avril person?" Saraidh asked gently.
Shensu nodded once, his features set. "Then he came!
"And now we have come," Saraidh said, pausing a moment before continuing on a brisker note. "And we must somehow gather as much evidence after the fact as possible. There have been many theories about Oort clouds and what they contain. This is the first opportunity to examine such a space-evolved creature, and the disaster it causes on an uninhabited planet. You said the organism burrowed into the ground and reproduced itself? I'd like to see the later stage of the organism's life cycle. Can you show me where?" she asked. She looked exceedingly attractive in her eagerness, Benden thought.
Shensu looked disgusted. "You wouldn't want to see any stage of its life cycle. My mother said that there was only the hunger of it. Which no one should encounter."
"Any sort of residue would aid the research, Shensu," she said, reaching out to touch his arm. "We need your help."
"We needed yours a long time ago," he said in a voice so bitter that Saraidh withdrew her hand, flushing.
"This expedition was mounted as soon as your message came up on the records, Shensu. The delay is not ours," Benden replied crisply. "But we are here now, and we'd like your cooperation."
Shensu gave a cynical snort. "Does my cooperation guarantee escaping from this place?"
Benden looked him squarely in the eye. "I could not, inconscience, leave you here," he said, having in that moment made his decision. "Especially in view of the fact that I also ca
Benden was aware of Ni Morgana's discreet approval. Shensu kept eye contact, his own reaction to Benden's decision unreadable.
"Your ship is low on fuel?"
"If we are to successfully lift additional passengers, yes."
"If you did not have to strip the Erica to compensate for our weight?" Shensu seemed amused as he watched Benden's reaction. "If you had, say, a full tank, could you allow us to bring enough valuables to assist us to resettle somewhere? Rescue to a pauper's existence would be no rescue at all."
Benden nodded in acknowledgment of that fact even as he spoke. "Kimmer said there was no more fuel. He was emphatic about it."
Shensu leaned his body across the table and spoke in a scarcely audible whisper, his black eyes glittering with what Benden read as quiet satisfaction. "Kimmer doesn't know everything, Lieutenant," Shensu said with a chuckle, "he thinks he does."
"What do you know that Kimmer doesn't?" Bend asked, lowering his own voice.
"Spaceship fuel has not changed in the past six decades, has it?" Shensu asked in his whisper.
"Not for ships of the Amherst's and the Yoko's class, Saraidh replied, quietly eager.
"Since you're so interested," Shensu said in a louder, conversational tone as he rose from the table, "I'd be happy to show you the rest of the Hold. We have a place for everything. I think my esteemed father had visions of founding a dynasty. My mother said that had not Thread come, there were others of our ethnic type who would have joined them here in Honshu." Shensu led them toward a hanging, which he pushed aside, gesturing them to proceed through the archway. "They accomplished much before Thread fell."
He let the hanging fall and joined Saraidh and Benden on the small square landing where stone-cut steps spiraled in both directions. Shensu indicated that they were to ascend.
Saraidh started up. "Wow! This is some staircase," she said as she made the first turn.
"I must warn you that the living room has peculiarities—one of which is an echo effect," Shensu said. "Conversations can be overheard in the passages outside. I don't believe he has yet recovered from his—disability—but Chio, or one of his daughters, is always eavesdropping for him. So, I take no chances. No, continue up. I know the steps become uneven. Balance yourself against the wall."
The steps were uneven, unfinished, and several had no more than toe space.
"This was deliberate?" Saraidh asked, begi
Benden was in agreement as he felt the muscles in his calves and thighs tightening. And he had thought that he'd spent adequate time in PT to keep himself fit for any exertion.
"Now where?" Saraidh asked as she came to a very narrow landing. The thin slit of a tiny aperture did nothing to illuminate the blank walls all around them.
Shensu apologized as he squeezed past the two officers, the half smile still on his face; to their chagrin, he was showing no signs of effort. He put his hand, palm down, on a rough, apparently natural declivity in the wall, and suddenly a whole section of the wall pivoted inward. Light came on to illuminate a low, deep cave. Benden whistled in surprise. The space was full of sacks, each tagged with some sort of coded label. Sacks of fuel, row upon row of them.
"There's more here than we need," Saraidh said, having made some rough calculations. "More than enough. But—" She turned to Shensu, her expression stern. "I could understand your keeping this from Kimmer, but surely this was fuel those shuttles could have used? Or did they?" she added, noticing that some of the closer ranks were thi
Shensu held up his hand. "My father was an honorable man. And when the need arose, he took what was needed from this cavern and gave it, willingly, to Admiral Benden doing all within his power to help overcome the menace that dropped from the skies. If he had not been murdered—" Shensu broke off, his jaw muscles tensing, his expression bleak. "I do not know where the three shuttles went, but they could only have lifted from Landing on the fuel my father gave Admiral Benden. Now I give the rest of the fuel to a man also named Benden." Shensu looked pointedly, at the lieutenant.
"Paul Benden was my uncle, " he admitted, finding himself chagrined at this unexpected inheritance. "The Erica is also economical with fuel. With a full tank, we can lift you and even make some allowance for personal effects. But why is the fuel here?"
"My father did not steal it," Shensu said, indignant.
"And I didn't imply that he had, Shensu," Benden replied soothingly.
"My father accumulated this fuel during the transfer from the colony ships to the surface of the planet. He was the most accomplished shuttle pilot of them all. And he was the most economical. He took only what his careful flying saved on each flight, and no one took harm from his economy. He told me how much was wasted by the other pilots, carelessly wasted. He was a charterer and had the right to take what was available. He merely insured that fuel was available."
"But—" Benden began, wishing to reassure Shensu.
"He saved it to fly. He had to fly." Shensu's eyes became slightly unfocused as his impassioned explanation continued. "It was his life. With space denied him, he designed a little atmosphere plane. I can show it to you. He flew it here, in Honshu, where no one but us could see him. But he took each of us up in that plane." Shensu's face softened with those memories. "That was the prize we all worked for. And I could understand his fascination with flight." He took a deep breath and regarded the two Fleet officers in his usual inscrutable fashion.