Страница 25 из 132
"Dammit! Excuse me," he snarled. He watched the miscreant regain his feet by hanging onto the lapels of Re
"My apologies." The Science Minister stepped back and brushed at himself ineffectually. "I haven't gotten used to spin gravity yet. None of us have. It's the Coriolis effect that throws us off."
"No. It's the elbows," Re
"Very fu
"I know, Doctor, and I sympathize. Now if you'll-" Visions of hot water and clean bedding receded as Horvath clutched at his lapels again.
"Just a moment, please." Horvath seemed to be making up his mind about something. "Mr. Re
"Hoo Boy, I sure was."
"I'd like to talk to you."
"Now? But, Doctor, the ship may need my attention at any moment-"
"I consider it urgent."
"But we're cruising through the photosphere of a star, as you may have noticed." And I haven't had a hot shower in three days. as you may also have noticed... Re
Horvath's cabin was as cramped as anything on board, except that it had walls. More than half of MacArthur's crew would have considered those walls an undeserved luxury. Horvath apparently did not, from the look of disgust and the muttered apologies as they entered the cabin.
He lifted the bunk into the bulkhead and dropped two chairs from the opposite wall. "Sit down, Re
The Sailing Master did not bother to deny it. He had been mate on a merchant ship before, and would skipper one when he left the Navy with his increased experience; and he could hardly wait to return to the merchant service.
"So," said Horvath, and sat down on the very edge of the foldout chair. "Re
Re
Horvath took it, though he looked as if he had eaten a bad oyster.
"All right," said Re
"Certainly, and I appreciate that you were too. But was it really that dangerous?"
"Dr. Horvath, the Captain surprised me twice. Utterly. When the probe attacked, I was trying to take us around the edge of the sail before we were cooked. Maybe I'd have got us away in time and maybe not. But the Captain took us through the sail. It was brilliant, it was something I should have thought of, and I happen to think the man's a genius. He's also a suicidal maniac."
"What?"
On Re
"Blaine did that himself?"
"No. He gave the job to Cargill. Who's better at tight high-gravity maneuvers than anybody else aboard. That's the point, Doctor. The Captain picked the best man for the job and got out of the way."
"And you would have run for it?"
"Forthrightly and without embarrassment."
"But he picked it up. Well." Horvath seemed to taste something bad. "But he also fired on it. The first-"
"It shot first."
"That was a meteor defense!"
"So what?"
Horvath clamped his lips.
"All right, Doctor, try this. Suppose you left your car on a hill with the brakes off and the wheels turned the wrong way, and suppose it rolled down the hill and killed four people. What's your ethical position?"
"Terrible. Make your point, Re
"The Moties are at least as intelligent as we are. Granted? OK. They built a meteor defense. They had an obligation to see to it that it did not fire on neutral space craft."
Horvath sat there for what seemed a long time, while Kevin Re
"You're welcome." Re
An alarm sounded.
"Oh, Lord. That's me." Re
They were deep within the Eye: deep enough that the thin starstufi around them showed yellow. The Field indicators showed yellow too, but with a tinge of green.
All this Re
"Right," Midshipman Whitbread said. "We're next, sir." The red-haired middie's grin seemed to meet at the back of his head.
Blaine sailed into the bridge without touching the companionway sides. "Take the con, Mr. Re
"Aye aye, sir," Re
MacArthur prepared herself for the unknown.
PART TWO - THE CRAZY EDDIE POINT
13 Look Around You
She was the first to find the intruders.
She had been exploring a shapeless mass of stony asteroid that turned out to be mostly empty space. Some earlier culture had carved out rooms and nooks and tankages and storage chambers, then fused the detritus into more rooms and chambers, until the mass was a stone beehive. It had all happened very long ago, but that was of no interest to her.
In later ages meteoroids had made dozens of holes through the construct. Thick walls had been gradually thi
She left via a meteoroid puncture; for all the air locks had been fused shut by vacuum welding. A long time after that someone had removed their metal working parts.
After she was outside, she saw them, very tar away, a tiny glimmer of golden light against the Coal Sack. It was worth a look. Anything was worth a look.
The Engineer returned to her ship.
Telescope and spectrometer failed her at first. There were two of the golden slivers, and some bulk inside each of them, but something was shutting out her view of the masses inside. Patiently the Engineer went to work on her instruments, redesigning, recalibrating, rebuilding, her hands working at blinding speed guided by a thousand Cycles of instincts.
There were force fields to be penetrated. Presently she had something that would do that. Not well, but she could see large objects.
She looked again.
Metal. Endless, endless metal.
She took off immediately. The call of treasure was not to be ignored. There was little of free will in an Engineer.
Blaine watched a flurry of activity through a red fog as he fought to regain control of his traitor body after return to normal space. An all-clear signal flashed from Lenin, and Rod breathed more easily. Nothing threatened, and he could enjoy the view.
It was the Eye he saw first. Murcheson's Eye was a tremendous ruby, brighter than a hundred full moons, all alone on the black velvet of the Coal Sack.