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OUT OF THE WHALE-DREAM

"Makakai, are you ready?"

Jacob ignored the tiny whirrings of motors and valves in his metal cocoon. He lay still. The water lapped gently against the bulbous nose of his mechanical whale, as he waited for an answer.

One more time he checked the tiny indicators on his helmet display. Yes, the radio was working. The occupant of the other' waldo whale, lying half submerged a few meters away, had heard every word.

The water was exceptionally clear today. Facing downward, he could see a small leopard shark swim lazily past, a bit out of place here in the deeper water offshore.

"Makakai... are you ready?"

He tried not to sound impatient, or betray the tension he felt building in the back of his neck as he waited. He closed his eyes and made the delinquent muscles relax, one by one. Still, he waited for his pupil to speak.

"Yesss . . . let'sss do it!" came the warbling, squeaky voice, at last. The words sounded breathless, as if spoken grudgingly, in lieu of inhalation.

A nice long speech for Makakai. He could see the young dolphin's training machine next to his, its image reflected in the mirrors that rimmed his faceplate. Its gray metal flukes lifted and fell slightly with the swell. Feebly, without their power, her artificial fins moved, sluggishly under the transient, serrated surface of the water.

She's as ready as she'll ever be, he thought. If technology can wean a dolphin of the Whale-Dream, now's the time we'll find out.

He chinned the microphone switch again. "All right, Makakai. You know how the waldo works. It will amplify any action you make, but if you want the rockets to cut in, you'll have to give the command in English. Just to be fair, I have to whistle in trinary to make mine work."

"Yesss!" she hissed. Her "waldo's gray flukes thrashed up once and down with a boom and a spray of saltwater.

With a ..half muttered prayer to the Dreamer, he touched a switch releasing the amplifiers on both Makakai's waldo and his own, then cautiously turned his arms to set the fins into motion. He flexed his legs, the massive flukes thrust back jerkily in response, and his machine immediately rolled over and sank.

Jacob tried to correct but overcompensated, making the waldo tumble even worse. The beating of his fins momentarily made the area around him a churning mass of bubbles, until patiently, by trial and error, he got himself righted.

He pushed off again, carefully, to get some headway, then arched his back and kicked out. The waldo responded with a great tail-slashing leap into the air.

The dolphin was almost a kilometer off. As he reached the top of his arc, Jacob saw her fall gracefully from a height of ten meters to slice smoothly into the swell below.

He pointed his helmet beak at the water and the sea came at him like a green wall. The impact made his helmet ring as he tore through tendrils of floating kelp, sending a golden Garibaldi darting away. In panic as he drove downwards.

He was going in too steep. He swore and kicked twice to straighten out. The machine's massive metal flukes beat at, the water to the rhythmic push of his feet, each beat sending a tremor up his spine, pressing him against the suit's heavy padding. When the time was right, he arched and kicked again. The machine ripped out of the water.

Sunlight flashed like a missile in his left window, its glare drowning the dim glow of his tiny instrument panel. The helmet computer chuckled softly as he twisted, beak down, to crash into the bright water once again.

As a school of tiny silver anchovies scattered before him, Jacob hooted out loud with exhilaration.

His hands slipped along the controls to the rocket verniers, and at the top of his next arc he whistled a code in trinary. Motors hummed, as the exoskeleton extended winglets along its sides. Then the boosters cut in with a savage burst, pressing the padded headpiece upward with the sudden acceleration, pinching the back of his skull as the waves swept past, just below his hurtling craft.

He came down near Makakai with a great splash. She whistled a shrill trinary welcome. Jacob let the rockets shut off automatically and resumed the purely mechanical leaping beside her.

For a time they moved in unison. With each leap Makakai grew more daring, performing twists and pirouettes during the long seconds before they struck the water. Once, in midair, she rattled off a dirty limerick in dolphin, a low piece of work, but Jacob hoped they'd recorded it back at the chase boat. He'd missed the punch line at the crashing end of the aerial cycle.

The rest of the training team followed behind them on the hovercraft. During each leap he caught sight of the large vessel, diminished, now, by distance, until his impact cut off everything but the sounds of splitting water, Makakai's sonar squeaking, and the rushing, phosphorescent blue-green past his windows.

Jacob's chronometer indicated that ten minutes had passed. He wouldn't be able to keep up with Makakai for more than a half hour, no matter how much amplification he used. A man's muscles and nervous system weren't designed for this leap-and-crash routine.

"Makakai, it's time to try the rockets. Let me know if you're ready and we'll use them on the following jump."

They both came down into the sea and he worked his flukes in the frothy water to prepare for the next leap. They jumped again.

"Makakai, I'm serious now. Are you ready?"

They sailed high together. He could see her tiny eye behind a plastic window as her Waldo-machine twisted before slicing into the water. He followed an instant later.

"Okay, Makakai. If you don't answer me, we'll just have to stop right now."

Blue water swept past, along with a cloud of bubbles, as he pushed along beside his pupil.

Makakai twisted around and dove down instead of rising for another leap. She chattered something almost too fast to follow in trinary . . . about how he shouldn't be a spoilsport.

Jacob let his machine rise slowly to the surface. "Come dear, use the King's English. You'll need it if you ever want your children to go into space. And it's so expressive! Come on. Tell Jacob what you think of him."

There were a few seconds of silence. Then he saw something move very fast below him. It streaked upward and, just before it hit the surface, he heard Makakai's voice shrilly taunt:

"Ch-chase me, ch-chump! I fly-y-y!"

With the last word, her mechanical flukes snapped back and she leaped out of the water on a column of flame.

Laughing, he dove to give himself headway and then launched into the air after his pupil.

Gloria handed him the strip chart as soon as he finished his second cup of coffee. Jacob tried to make his eyes focus on the squiggly lines, but they swam back and forth like ocean swells. He handed the chart back.

"I'll look at the data later. Can you just give me a summary? And I'll take one of those sandwiches now, too, if you'll let me clean up."

She tossed him a tuna on rye and sat on the countertop, her hands on the edges to compensate for the swaying of the boat. As usual, she was wearing next to nothing. Pretty, well endowed, and with long black hair, the young biologist wore next to nothing very well.

"I think we have the brainwave information we need now, Jacob. I don't know how you did it, but Makakai's attention span in English was at least twice normal. Manfred thinks he's found enough associated synaptic clusters to give him a boost in his next set of experimental mutations. There are a couple of nodes that he wants to expand in the left cerebral lobe of Makakai's offspring.

"My group is happy enough with the present. Makakai's facility with the waldo-whale proves that the current generation can use machines."

Jacob sighed. "If you're hoping these results will persuade the Confederacy to cancel the next generation of mutations, don't count on it. They're running scared. They don't want to have to rely forever on poetry and music to prove that dolphins are intelligent. They want a race of analytical tool users, and giving codewords to activate a rocket waldo just won't qualify. Twenty to one Manfred gets to cut."

Gloria reddened. "Cutting! They're people, a people with a beautiful dream. We'll carve them into engineers and lose a race of poets!"

Jacob put down the crust of his sandwich. He brushed crumbs away from his chest. Already, he regretted having said anything.

"I know, I know. I wish things could go a little slower, too. But look at it this way. Maybe the fins'll be able to put the Whale-Dream into words someday. We won't need trinary to discuss the weather, or Aborigine-pidgin to talk philosophy. They'll be able to join the chimps, thumbing their metaphorical noses at the Galactics while we put on an act of being dignified adults."

"But..."

Jacob raised his hand to cut her off. "Can we discuss this later? I'd like to stretch out for a little while, and then go down and visit with our girl."

Gloria frowned for a moment,, then smiled openly. "I'm sorry, Jacob. You must really be tired. But at least today, finally, everything worked."

Jacob allowed himself to return her grin. On his broad face the toothy smile brought out lines around his mouth and eyes.

"Yes," he said, rising to his feet. "Today everything worked."

"Oh by the way, while you were down, there was a call for you. It was an Eatee! Johnny was so excited about it that he barely remembered to take a message. I think it's around here somewhere."

She pushed aside the lunch dishes and plucked up a slip of paper. She handed it to him.

Jacob's bushy eyebrows knotted together as he looked down at the message. His skin was taut and dark from a mixture of ancestry and exposure to sun and saltwater. The brown eyes tended to narrow to fine slits when he concentrated. He brought a calloused hand to the side of his hooked, amerind nose and struggled with the radio operator's handwriting.

"I guess we all knew that you worked with Eatees," Gloria said. "But I sure didn't expect to get one on the horn out here! Especially one that looks like a giant broccoli sprout and talks like a Minister of Protocol!"

Jacob's head jerked up.

"A Kanten called? Here? Did he leave his name?"

"It should be down there. Is that what it was? A Kanten? I'm afraid I don't know my aliens that well. I'd recognize a Cynthian or a Tymbrimi, but this one was new to me."

"Um . . . I'm going to have to call somebody. I'll clean up the dishes later so don't you touch them! Tell Manfred and Johnny I'll be down in a little while to visit with Makakai. And thanks again." He smiled and touched her shoulder lightly, but as he turned his expression quickly relapsed to one of worried preoccupation.

He passed on through the forward hatch, clutching the message. Gloria looked after him for a moment She picked up the data charts and wished she knew what it would take to hold the man's interest for more than an hour, or a night.

Jacob's cabin was barely a closet with a narrow fold-down bunk, but it offered enough privacy. He pulled his portable teli out of a cabinet near the door and set it on the bunk.

There was no reason to assume that Fagin had called for any other purpose than to be sociable. He had, after all, a deep interest in the work with dolphins.

There had been a few times, though, when the alien's messages had led to nothing but trouble. Jacob considered not returning the Kanten's call.

After a moment's hesitation, he punched out a code on the face of the teli and settled back to compose himself. When he came right- down to it, he couldn't resist an opportunity to talk with an E.T., anywhere, anytime.

A line of binary flashed on the screen, giving the location of the portable unit he was calling. The Baja E.T. Reserve. Makes sense, Jacob thought. That's where the Library is. There was the standard warning against contact with aliens by Probationary Personalities. Jacob looked away with distaste. Bright points of static filled the space above the blankets and in front of the screen, and then Fagin stood, en-replica, a few inches away.

The E.T. did look somewhat like a giant sprout of broccoli. Rounded blue and green shoots formed symmetrical, spherical balls of growth around a gnarled, striated trunk. Here and there tiny crystalline flakes tipped a few of the branches, forming a cluster near the top around an invisible blowhole.

The foliage swayed and the crystals near the top tinkled from the passage of air the creature exhaled.

"Hello, Jacob," Fagin's voice came tinnily out of midair. "I greet you with gladness and gratitude and with the austere lack of formality upon which you so frequently and forcefully insist."

Jacob fought back a laugh. Fagin reminded him of an ancient Mandarin, as much for the fluting quality of his accent as for the convoluted protocol he used with even his closest human friends.

"I greet you, Friend-Fagin, and wish you well with all respect. And now that that's over, and before you say even a word, the answer is no."

The crystals tinkled softly. "Jacob! You are so young and yet so perspicacious! I admire your insight and ability to divine my purpose in calling you I"

Jacob shook his head.

"Neither flattery nor thickly veiled sarcasm, Fagin; I insist on speaking colloquial English with you because it's the only way I have a chance of avoiding getting screwed whenever I deal with you. And you know very well what I'm talking about!"

The alien shook, giving a parody of a shrug.

"Ah, Jacob, I must bow to your will and use the highly esteemed honesty of which your species should be so proud. It is true that there is a slight favor for which I had the temerity to ask. But now that you have given me your answer . . . based no doubt on certain past unpleasant occurrences, most of which nevertheless turned out for the best ... I shall simply drop the subject.

"Would it be possible to inquire how your work with the proud Client species 'porpoise' proceeds?"

"Uh, yes, the work is going very well. We had a breakthrough today."

"That is excellent, I am certain that it could not have happened without your intervention. I heard that your work there was indispensable!"

Jacob shook his head to clear it. Somehow Fagin had taken the initiative again.

"Well, it's true I was able to help out early on with the Water-Sphinx problem, but since then my part hasn't been all that special. Hell, anyone could have done what I've been doing here lately."

"Oh, that is something that I find very hard to believe!" Jacob frowned. Unfortunately it was true. And from now on the work here at the Center for Uplift would be even more routine.

A hundred experts, some more qualified in porp-psych than he, were waiting to step in. The Center would probably keep him on, partly out of gratitude, but did he really want to stay? Much as he loved dolphins and the sea, he'd found himself more and more restless lately.

"Fagin, I'm sorry I was so rude at first. I'd like to hear what you called me about . . . provided you understand that the answer is still probably no."

Fagin's foliage rustled.

"I had the intention of inviting you to a small and amicable meeting with some worthy beings of diverse species, to discuss an important problem of a purely intellectual nature. The meeting will be held this Thursday, at the Visitors Center in Ensenada, at eleven o'clock. You will be committed to nothing if you attend."

Jacob chewed on the idea for a moment.

"E.T.'s, you say? Who are they? What's this meeting about?"

"Alas, Jacob, I am not at liberty to say, at least not by teli. The details will have to wait until you come, if you come, on Thursday."

Jacob immediately became suspicious. "Say, this 'problem' isn't political, is it? You're being awfully close."

The image of the alien was very still. It's verdant mass rippled slowly, as if in contemplation.

"I have never understood, Jacob," the fluting voice finally resumed, "why a man of your background takes so little interest in the interplay of emotions and needs which you call 'politics.' Were the metaphor appropriate, I would say that politics is 'in my blood.' It certainly is in yours."

"You leave my family out of this! I only want to know why it's necessary to wait until Thursday to find out what all of this is about!"

Again, the Kanten hesitated.

"There are . . . aspects of this matter which would best not be spoken over the ether. Several of the more thalamic of the contesting factions in your culture might misuse the knowledge if they ... overheard. However, let me assure you that your part would be purely technical. It is your knowledge we wish to tap, and the skills you have been using at the Center."

Bull! Jacob thought. You want more than that.

He knew Fagin. If he attended this meeting the Kanten undoubtedly would try to use it as a wedge to get him involved in some ridiculously complicated and dangerous adventure. The alien had already done it to him on three occasions in the past.

The first two times Jacob hadn't minded. But he'd been a different sort of person then, the kind who loved that sort of thing.

Then came the Needle. The trauma in Ecuador had changed his life completely. He had no desire to go through anything like it again.

And yet, Jacob felt a powerful reluctance to disappoint the old Kanten. Fagin had never actually lied to him, and he was the only E.T. he'd met who was unabashedly an admirer of human culture and history. Physically the most alien creature he knew, Fagin was also the one extraterrestrial who tried hardest to understand Earthmen.

I should be safe if I simply tell Fagin the truth, Jacob thought If he starts applying too much pressure I'll let him know about my mental state—the experiments with self-hypnosis and the weird results I've been getting. He won't push too hard if I appeal to his sense of fair play.

"All right," he sighed. "You win, Fagin. I'll be there. Just don't expect me to be the star of the show."

Fagin's laughter whistled with a flavor of woodwinds. "Do not be concerned about that, Friend-Jacob! In this particular show no one will mistake you for the star!"

The Sun was still above the horizon as he walked along the upper deck toward Makakai's quarters. It loomed, dim and orange among the sparse clouds in the west—a benign, featureless orb. He stopped at the rail for a moment to appreciate the colors of the sunset and the smell of the sea.

He closed his eyes and allowed the sunlight to warm his face, the rays penetrating his skin with gentle, browning insistence. Finally, he swung both legs over the rail and dropped to the lower deck. A taut, energized feeling had almost replaced the day's exhaustion. He began to hum a fragment of a tune— out of key, of course.

A tired dolphin drifted to the edge of the pool when he arrived. Makakai greeted him with a trinary poem too quick to catch, but it sounded amiably nasty. Something about his sex life. Dolphins had been telling humans dirty jokes for thousands of years before men finally started breeding them for brains and for speech, and began to understand. Makakai might be a lot smarter than her ancestors, Jacob thought, but her sense of humor was strictly dolphin.

"Well," he said. "Guess who's had a busy day."

She splashed at him, more weakly than usual, and said something that sounded a lot like "Br-r-a-a-a-p you!"

But she moved in closer when he hunkered down to put his hand into the water and say hello.

SHIRTS AND SKINS

The old North American governments had razed the Border Strip years ago, to control movements to and from Mexico. A desert was made where two cities once touched.

Since the Overturn, and the destruction of the oppressive "Bureaucracy" of the old syndical governments, Confederacy authorities had maintained the area as parklands. The border zone between San Diego and Tijuana was now one of the largest forested areas south of Pendleton Park.

But that was changing. As he drove his rented car southward on the elevated highway, Jacob saw signs that the belt was returning to its old purpose. Crews worked on both sides of the road, cutting down trees and erecting slender, candy-striped poles at hundred-yard intervals to the west and east. The poles were shameful. He looked away.

A large green and white sign loomed where the line of poles crossed the highway.

New Boundary: Baja Extraterrestrial Reserve

Tijuana Residents Who Are Non-Citizens

Report to City Hall for Your Generous

Resettlement Bonus!

Jacob shook his head and grunted, "Oderint Dum Metuant." Let them hate, so long as they fear. So what if a person has lived in a town his entire life. If he hasn't got the vote, he's got to move out of the way when progress comes along.

Tijuana, Honolulu, Oslo, and half a dozen other cities were to be included when the E.T. Reserves expanded again. Fifty or sixty thousand Probationers, both permanent and temporary, would have to move to make those cities "safe" for perhaps a thousand aliens. The actual hardship would be small, of course. Most of Earth was still barred to E.T.'s, and non-Citizens still had plenty of room. The government offered large reparations as well.

But once again there were refugees on Earth.

The city suddenly resumed at the southern edge of the Strip. Many of the structures followed a Spanish or Spanish-Revival style, but overall the city showed the architectural experimentation typical of a modern Mexican town. Here the buildings ran in whites and blues. Traffic on both sides of the highway filled the air with a faint electric whine.

All over the town, green and white metallic signs, like the one at the border, heralded the coming change. But one, near the highway, had been defaced with black spray paint. Before it passed out of sight, Jacob caught a glimpse of the raggedly written words "Occupation" and "Invasion."

A Permanent Probationer did that, he thought. A Citizen wasn't likely to do anything so kinky, with hundreds of legal ways to express his opinion. And a Temporary Probie, sentenced to probation for a crime, wouldn't want his sentence lengthened. A Temporary would recognize the certainty of being caught.

No doubt some poor Permanent facing eviction, had vented his feelings, not caring about the consequences. Jacob sympathized. The P.P. was probably in custody by now.

Although he was not particularly interested in politics, Jacob came from a political family. Two of his grandparents had been heroes in the Overturn, when a small group of technocrats had succeeded in bringing the Bureaucracy tumbling down. The family policy toward the Probation Laws was one of vehement opposition.

Jacob had been of a habit, the last few years, of avoiding memories of the past. Now, though, an image came forcefully to mind.

Summer school in the Alvarez Clan compound in the hills above Caracas ... in the very house where Joseph Alvarez and his friends had made their plans thirty years before ... there was Uncle Jeremey lecturing while Jacob's cousins and adopted cousins listened, all respectful expressions on the outside and seething summer boredom within. And Jacob fidgeted in the back corner, wishing he could get back to his room and the "secret equipment" he and his stepsister Alice had put together.

Suave and confident, Jeremey was then still in early middle age, a rising voice in the Confederacy Assembly. Soon he would be leader of the Alvarez clan, edging aside his older brother James.

Uncle Jeremey was telling about how the old Bureaucracy had decreed that everyone alive would be tested for "violent tendencies" and that all who failed would from then on be under constant surveillance—Probation.

Jacob could remember the exact words his uncle had spoken that afternoon, when Alice had come sneaking into the Library, excitement radiating from her twelve-year-old face like something about to go nova.

". . . They went to great efforts to convince the populace," Jeremey said in a low rumbling voice, "that the laws would cut down on crime. And they did have that effect. Individuals with radio transmitters in their rumps often think twice about causing trouble to their neighbors.

"Then, as now, the Citizens loved the Probation Laws. They had no trouble forgetting the fact that they cut through every traditional Constitutional guarantee of due process. Most of them lived in countries that had never had such niceties anyway.

"And when a fluke in those laws allowed Joseph Alvarez and his friends to turn the Bureaucrats themselves out on their ears—well, the jubilant Citizens just loved Probation testing even more. It did the leaders of the Overturn no good to push the issue at the time. They were having enough trouble setting lip the Confederacy...."

Jacob thought he would scream. Here was old Uncle Jeremey gabbing on and on about all that old nonsense, and Alice—lucky Alice whose turn it was to risk the oldsters' ire and listen in on the tap they'd placed on the house deepspace receiver—what was it she had heard!

It had to be a starship! It would be only the third of the great slow vessels ever to come back! That was the only possible explanation for the call up of the Space Reserves OF for all the excitement in the east wing, where the adults kept their labs and offices.

Jeremey was still expounding on the public's continuing lack of compassion, but Jacob neither saw nor heard him. He kept his face rigid and still as Alice leaned over to whisper—no, gasp in her excitement—into his ear.

". . . Aliens, Jacob! They're bringing extraterrestrials! In their own ships! Oh, Jake, the Vesarius is bringing home Eatees!" '

It was the first time Jacob had ever heard that word. He had often wondered if Alice was the one to coin it. 'At ten years of age, he recalled, he had wondered if "eatee" implied that someone else was to be designated "eaten."'

As he drove above the streets of Tijuana, it occurred to him that the question still hadn't been answered.

In several major intersections one corner edifice had been removed and a rainbow-colored "E.T. Comfort Station Kiosk" installed. Jacob saw several of the new low open-decked busses equipped to carry humans and aliens who slithered, or walked three meters tall.

As he passed City Hall, Jacob saw about a dozen "Skins" picketing. At least they looked like Skins: people wearing furs and waving toy plastic spears.

Who else would dress that way in this sort of weather?

He turned up the volume on the car's radio and pressed the voice-select.

"Local news," he said. "Key words: Skins, City Hall, picketing."

After only a moment of delay a mechanical voice spoke from behind the dashboard with the slightly flawed inflection of a computer-generated news report. Jacob wondered if they'd ever get the voice tone right.

"Newsbrief summary." The artificial voice had an Oxford accent. "Precis: today, January 12, 2248, oh-nine forty one, good morning. Thirty seven persons are picketing the Tijuana City Hall in a legal manner. Their registered grievance is, summarized in abstract, the expansion of the Extraterrestrial Reserve. Please interrupt if you wish a fax or verbal presentation of their registered protest manifesto."

The machine paused. Jacob said nothing, already wondering if he wanted to hear the rest of the precis. He was already well acquainted with the Skins' protest against the implication of the Reserves: that some humans, at least, weren't fit to associate with aliens.

"Twenty-six of the thirty-seven members of the protest group carry probation transmitters," the report continued. "The rest are, of course, Citizens. This compares to a ratio of one probationer per hundred and twenty-four Citizens in Tijuana in general. By their demeanor and dress the protestors can be tentatively described as proponents of the so-called Neolithic Ethic, colloquially, 'Skins.' As none of the citizens has invoked privacy privilege, it can be said for certain that thirty of the thirty-seven are residents of Tijuana and the rest are visitors ..."

Jacob stabbed the cutoff button and the voice died in mid-sentence. The scene at City Hall had long ago passed out of sight and it was an old story anyway.

The controversy over the expansion of the E.T. Reserve reminded him, though, that it had been almost two months since he last visited his Uncle James in Santa Barbara. The old bombast was probably up to his protruding ears, by now, In lawsuits on behalf of half of the probies in Tijuana. Still, he would notice if Jacob left on a long trip without saying good-bye, either to him or to the other uncles, aunts, and cousins of the rambling, rambunctious Alvarez clan.

Long trip? What long trip? Jacob thought suddenly. I'm not going anywhere!

But that corner of his mind he'd set aside for such things had caught scent of something in this meeting Fagin had called. He felt a sense of anticipation, and simultaneously a wish to suppress it. The feelings would have been intriguing, if they weren't already so familiar.

He rode on for a time in silence. Soon the city gave way to open countryside, and traffic reduced to a trickle. For the next twenty kilometers he drove with the sunshine warm on his arm and a pattern of doubts playing tag in his mind.

In spite of the restlessness he had felt recently, he was reluctant to admit that it was time to leave the Center for Uplift. The work with dolphins and chimps was fascinating, and far more equable (after the first tumultuous weeks during the Water-Sphinx affair) than his old profession as a scientific-crime investigator had been. The staff at the Center was dedicated and, unlike so many other scientific enterprises on Earth these days, they had high morale. They were doing work that had tremendous intrinsic value and would not be made instantly obsolete when the Branch Library in La Paz became completely operational.

But most important, he had made friends, and those friends had been supportive during the last year or so as he began the slow process of knitting together the schismed portions of his mind.

Gloria especially. I'm going to have to do something about her if I stay, Jacob thought. And more than the comradely heavy breathing we've done so far. The girl's feelings were becoming obvious.

Before the disaster in Ecuador, the loss that had brought him to the Center in the first place seeking work and peace, he would have known what to do and had the courage to do it. Now his feelings were a morass. He wondered If he would ever again consider more than a casual love relationship.

It had been a long two years since Tania's death. It had been lonely, at times, in spite of his work, his friends, and the ever fascinating games he played with his mind.

The ground became hilly and brown. Watching the cacti go by, Jacob sat back to enjoy the slow rhythm of the ride. Even now, his body swayed slightly with the motion as if he were still at sea.

The ocean glistened blue beyond the hills. The nearer the curving road took him to the meeting place, the more he wished he was aboard a boat out there: watching for the first hunched back and raised fluke of the year's Grey Migration, listening for the whale's Song of the Leader.

He rounded one hill to find the parking strips on both sides of the road lined solid with little electric runabouts like his own. On the crests of the hills up ahead were scores of people.

Jacob pulled his vehicle over into the automatic guideway on the right, where he could cruise slowly and take his eyes off the highway. What was going on here? Two adults and several children unloaded a car by the left side of the road, taking out picnic baskets and binoculars. They were clearly excited. They looked like a typical family on a weekday outing, except that all of them wore bright silver robes and golden amulets. Most of the people on the hill above them were similarly garbed. Many had small telescopes, aimed up the road at something that was obscured from Jacob's view by the hill on the right

The crowd on that hill wore their caveman gear with panache. These Compleat Cro-Magnons compromised. They had their own telescopes, as well as wristwatches, radios, and megaphones, to back up their flint axes and spears.

It wasn't surprising that the two groups settled on opposite hilltops. The only thing that the Shirts and Skins ever agreed on was their hatred of the Extraterrestrial Quarantine.

A huge sign spanned the highway at the crest between the two hills.

BAJA CALIFORNIA EXTRATERRESTRIAL

RESERVE

Probationaries Not Admitted Without

Authorization

First Time Visitors Please Stop At The

Information Center

No Fetishes Or Neolithic Garments

Please Check "Skins" in at Information Center.

Jacob smiled. The "papers" had had a field day with that last command. There were cartoons on every channel, which depicted visitors to the Reserve being forced to peel off their dermis, while a pair of snakelike E.T.'s looked on approvingly.

The parked cars jammed together at the top. When Jacob's car reached that point, the Barrier came into view.

In a wide swatch of barren ground that stretched from east to west, another line of barber poles ran, this one complete. The colors had faded from many of the smooth posts. Dust coated the round lamps that capped the tops.

The ubiquitous P-trackers acted here as a visible sieve, allowing Citizens to pass freely in and out of the E.T. Reserve but warning probationers to stay out, and aliens to stay within. It was a crude reminder of a fact that most people carefully ignored: that a large part of humanity wore imbedded transmitters because the larger part didn't trust them. The majority didn't want contact between extraterrestrials and those deemed "prone to violence" by a psychological test.

Apparently, the Barrier did its job well. The crowds on both sides grew thicker up ahead, and the costumes wilder, but the mob stopped in a clump just north of the line of P-posts. Some of the Shirts and Skins were probably Citizens, but they kept on this side with their friends—out of politeness or perhaps as a protest.

The crowds were thickest just north of the Barrier. Here the Shirts and Skins shoved signs at quickly passing motorists.

Jacob kept in the guideway and looked about, shading his eyes from the glare and enjoying the show.

A young man on the left, wrapped in silver sateen from throat to toe, held up a placard that said, "Man-kind Was Uplifted Too: Let Our E.T. Cousins Out!"

Just across the roadway from him a woman held a banner tacked to a spearshaft: "We did it Ourselves ... Eatees off Earth!"

There was the controversy in a nutshell. The whole world waited to see If the believers in Darwin, or those who followed Von Daniken, were right. The Skins and Shirts were only the more fanatical fringes of a split that had divided humanity into two philosophical camps. The issue: how did Homo-Sapiens originate as a thinking being?

Or was that all the Shirts and Skins represented?

The former group took their love of aliens to almost a pseudo-religious frenzy. Hysterical Xenophilia?

The Neoliths, with their love of caveman garb and ancient lore; were their cries for "independence from E.T. influence" based on something more basic—fear of the unknown, the powerfully alien? Xenophobia?

Of one thing Jacob was sure. The Shirts and Skins shared resentment. Resentment of the Confederacy's cautious compromise policy towards E.T.'s. Resentment of the Probation Laws which kept so many of them in a form of Coventry. Resentment of a world in which no man any longer knew his roots for certain.

An old, unshaven man caught Jacob's eye. He squatted by the road, hopped up and down and pointed at the ground between his legs, shouting in the dust kicked up. by the crowd. Jacob slowed down as he approached.

The man wore a fur jacket and hand-sewn leather breeches. His shouting and jumping grew more frenzied as Jacob neared.

"Doo-Doo!" He screamed, as if delivering a terrible insult. Froth appeared on his lips and he again pointed to the ground.

"Doo-Doo! Doo-Doo!"

Puzzled, Jacob slowed the car almost to a stop.

Something flew past his face from the left and cracked against the window on the passenger side. There was a bang on the roof and within seconds a fusillade of small pebbles was striking the car, making a drumming that pounded in his ears.

He ran up the window on his left side, yanked the car out of automatic, and surged ahead. The flimsy metal and plastic of the runabout dimpled every time a missile struck it. Suddenly there were faces leering in Jacob's side windows; young tough faces with drooping moustaches. The youths ran along, the side of the car as it sluggishly accelerated, hammering on it with fists and shouting.

With the Barrier only a few meters away, Jacob laughed and decided to find out what they wanted. He eased off a trifle on the accelerator and turned to mouth a question at the man who ran next to him, an adolescent dressed as a twentieth-century science fiction hero. The crowd by the side of the road was a blur of placards and costumes.

Before he could speak the car was shaken by a jolting bang. A hole had appeared in his windshield and a burning smell filled the little cab.

Jacob gunned the car toward the Barrier. The row of barber poles whizzed by and suddenly he was alone. In his rearview mirror he saw his entourage gather together. The youths shouted as he drove off, raising fists from the sleeves of futuristic robes. He grinned and opened the window to wave back.

How am I going to explain this to the rental company? he thought. Shall I say that I was attacked by forces of the Imperial Ming or do you think they'll believe the truth?

There was no question of calling the police. The local constabulary would be unable to make a move without starting with a P-Search. And a few P-Transmitters among so many would be lost for sure. Besides, Fagin had asked him to be discreet in coming to this meeting.

He rolled down the windows to let a breeze carry away the smoke. He poked at the bullet hole in his windshield with the tip of his small finger and smiled bemusedly.

You actually enjoyed that, didn't you? he thought

It was one thing to let the adrenalin flow, and quite another to laugh at danger. His sense of elation during the fracas at the Barrier worried a part of Jacob more than the mysterious violence of the crowd did ... a symptom out of his past.

A minute or two passed, then a tone sounded from the dashboard.

He looked up. A hitchhiker? Out here? Down the road, less than half of a kilometer away, a man by the curb held his watch out into the path of the guidebeam. Two satchels rested on the ground beside him.

Jacob hesitated. But here inside the Reserve only Citizens were allowed. He pulled over to the curb, just a few meters past the man.

There was something familiar about the fellow. He was a florid little man in a dark grey business suit and his paunch jiggled as he heaved two heavy bags to the side of Jacob's car. His face was perspiring as he bent over the door on the passenger's side and peered in.

"Oh boy, what heat!" he moaned. He spoke standard English with a thick accent.

"No wonder no one uses the guideway," he went on, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. "They drive so fast to catch a little tiny breeze, don't they? But you are familiar, we must have met somewhere before. I am Peter LaRoque ... or Pierre, If you wish. I am with Les Mondes."

Jacob started.

"Oh. Yes, LaRoque. We've met before. I'm Jacob Demwa. Hop in, I'm only going as far as the Information Center, but you can get a bus from there."

He hoped that his face didn't show his feelings. Why hadn't he recognized LaRoque when he was still moving? He might not have stopped.

It wasn't that he had anything in particular against the man . . . other than his incredible ego and his inexhaustible store of opinions, which he would thrust upon anyone at the smallest opportunity. In many ways he was probably a fascinating personality. He certainly had a following in the Danikenite press. Jacob had read a number of LaRoque's articles and enjoyed the style, if not the content.

But LaRoque had been a member of the press corps that had chased him for weeks after he'd solved the Water-Sphinx mystery, and one of the least tactful at that. The final story in Les Mondes had been favorable, and beautifully written as well. But it hadn't been worth the trouble.

Jacob was glad that the press hadn't been able to find him after the still earlier Ecuadorian fiasco, that mess at the Vanilla Needle. At that time LaRoque would have been too much to bear.

Right now he was having trouble believing LaRoque's obviously affected "Origin" accent. It was even thicker than the last time they'd met, if possible.

"Demwa, ah, of course!" the man said. He stuffed his bags behind the passenger seat and got in. "The maker and purveyor of aphorisms! The connoisseur of mysteries! You're here maybe to play puzzle games with our noble interplanetary guests? Or perhaps you are going to consult with the Great Library in La Paz?"

Jacob re-entered the guideway, wishing he knew who had started the "National Origins Accent" fad, so he could strangle the man.

"I'm here to do some consultant work and my employers include extraterrestrials, if that's what you mean. But I can't go into details."

"Ah yes, so very secret!" LaRoque wagged a finger playfully. "You should not tease a journalist so! Your business I might make my business! But you, you must surely wonder what brings the ace reporter of Les Mondes to this desolate place, no?"

"Actually," Jacob said, "I'm more interested in how you came to be hitchhiking in the middle of this desolate place."

LaRoque sighed.

"A desolate place, indeed! How sad it is that the noble aliens who visit us should be stuck here and in other wastelands such as your Alaska!"

"And Hawaii and Caracas and Sri Lanka, the Confederacy Capitols," Jacob said. "But as to how you came to be ..."

"How I came to be assigned here? Yes, of course, Demwa! But maybe we can amuse ourselves with your renowned deductive talents. You perhaps can guess?"

Jacob suppressed a groan. He reached forward to pull the car out of the guideway and put more weight onto the accelerator pedal.

"I've got a better idea, LaRoque. Since you don't want to tell me why you were standing there in the middle of nowhere, perhaps you'd be willing to clear up a little mystery for me."

Jacob described the scene at the Barrier. He left out the violent ending, hoping that LaRoque hadn't noticed the hole in the windshield, but he carefully described the behavior of the squatting man.

"But of course!" LaRoque cried. "You make it easy for me!

"You know the initials of this phrase you used, 'Permanent Probationer,' that horrible classification which denies a man his rights, parenthood, the franchise ..."

"Look, I agree already! Save the speech." Jacob thought for a moment. What were the initials?

"Oh ... I think I see."

"Yes, the poor fellow was only striking back! You Citizens, you call him Pee-Pee ... so is it not simple justice that he accuse you of being Docile and Domesticated? Ergo the doo-doo!"

Jacob laughed, despite himself. The road began to curve.

"I wonder why all those people were gathered at the Barrier? They seemed to be waiting for somebody."

"At the Barrier?" LaRoque said. "Ah yes. I hear that happens every Thursday. Eatees from the Center go up to look at non-Citizens and they in turn come down to look at an Eatee. Droll, no? One doesn't know which side throws the peanuts!"

The road turned around one hill and their destination was in sight.

The Information Center, a few kilometers north of Ensenada, was a sprawling compound of E.T. quarters, public museums and, hidden around back, barracks for the border patrol. In front of a broad parking lot stood the main structure where first-time visitors took lessons in Galactic Protocol.

The station was on a small plateau, between the highway and the ocean, commanding a broad view over both. Jacob parked the car near the main entrance.

LaRoque was chewing, red-faced, on some thought. He looked up suddenly.

"You know I was joking, Just then, when I spoke about peanuts. I was only making a joke."

Jacob nodded, wondering what had got into the man. Strange.

GESTALT

Jacob helped LaRoque carry his bags to the bus station, then made his way around the main building to find a place outside to sit. Ten minutes remained before he was due at the meeting.

Where the compound overlooked a small harbor he found a patio with shade trees and picnic tables. He chose one table to sit on and rested his feet on the bench. The touch of the cool ceramic tile and the breeze off the ocean penetrated his clothing and drew away the redness from his skin and the perspiration from his clothes.

For a few minutes he sat quietly, letting the hard muscles of his shoulders and lower back relax one by one, sloughing off the tension of the drive. He focused on a small sailboat, a daycraft with jib and main colored greener than the ocean. Then he let a trance come down over his eyes.

Floating. One at a time he examined the things his senses revealed to him and then he canceled them. He concentrated on his muscles one by one, to cut off sensation and tension. Slowly his limbs grew numb and distant.

An itch in his thigh persisted, but his hands remained in his lap until it left of its own accord. The salt smell of the sea was pleasant but equally distracting. He made it go away. He shut off the sound of his heartbeat by listening to it with undivided attention until it became too familiar to notice.

As he had for two years, Jacob guided the trance through a cathartic phase, in which images came and went startlingly fast in healing pain, as two pieces, split apart, tried again to fuse whole. It was a process that he never enjoyed.

He was alone, almost. All that remained was a background of voices, murmuring subvocal snatches of phrases at the edge of meaning. For a moment ha thought he could hear Gloria and Johnny arguing about Makakai, then Makakai herself chattering something irreverent in pidgin-trinary.

He guided each sound away gently, waiting for one that came, as usual, with predictable suddenness: Tania's voice calling something he couldn't quite understand as she fell past him, arms outstretched. He still heard her as she fell the rest of the twenty miles to the ground, becoming a tiny speck and then disappearing ... still calling.

That little voice too faded, but this time it left him more uneasy than usual.

A violent, exaggerated version of the incident at the Zone Boundary flashed through his mind. Suddenly he was back, this time standing among the Probationers. A bearded man dressed as a Pictish Shaman held out a pair of binoculars and nodded insistently.

Jacob picked them up and looked where the man pointed. Its image warped by heat waves rising from the highway, a bus rolled to a*stop just on the other side of a line of candy-striped poles that stretched to each, horizon. Each pole seemed to reach all the way up to the sun.

Then the image was gone. With practiced indifference, Jacob let go of the temptation to think about it and allowed his mind to go completely blank.

Silence and Darkness.

He rested in a deep trance, relying on his own internal clock to signal when the time to emerge was near. He moved slowly among patterns that had no symbols and long familiar meanings that eluded description or remembrance, patiently looking for the key he knew was there and that he'd someday find.

Time was now a thing like any other, lost in a deeper passage.

The calm dark was pierced, suddenly, by a sharp pain driving past all of his mind's isolation. It took a moment, an eternity that must have been a hundredth of a second, to localize it. The pain was a bright blue light that seemed to stab at his hypnosis sensitized eyes through closed lids. In another instant, before he could react, it was gone.

Jacob struggled for a moment with his confusion. He tried to concentrate solely on rising to consciousness while a stream of panicky questions popped like flashbulbs in his mind.

What subconscious artifact had that blue light been? A corner of neurosis that defends itself so fiercely has to mean trouble! What hidden fear did I probe?

As he emerged, hearing returned.

There were footsteps ahead. He picked them out from the sounds of the wind and sea, but in his trance they seemed like the soft padding ostrich feet might make if clothed in mocassins.

The deep trance finally broke, several seconds after the subjective burst of light. He opened his eyes. A tall alien stood in front of him, a few meters away. His immediate impression was of tallness, whiteness, and huge red eyes.

For a moment the world seemed to tilt.

Jacob's hands flew to the sides of the table and his head sank as he steadied himself. He closed his eyes.

Some trance! he thought. My head feels as if it's about to crash through the Earth and come out the other side!

He rubbed his eyes with one hand, then carefully looked up once again.

The alien was still there. So it was real. It was humanoid, standing at least two meters tall. Most of its slender body was covered by a long .silvery robe. The hands, folded in front in the Attitude of Respectful Waiting, were long, white and glossy.

A very large round head bowed forward on a Bleeder neck. The lidless, red, columnar eyes and the lips of the alien's mouth were huge. They dominated the face, on which a few other small organs served purposes unknown to him. This species was new to Jacob.

The eyes glowed with intelligence.

Jacob cleared his throat. He still had to fight off waves of dizziness.

"Excuse me. . . . Since we haven't been introduced, I ... don't know how I'm to address you, but I assume you're here to see me?"

The big, white head nodded deeply in assent.

"Are you with the group the Kanten Fagin asked me to meet?"

Again, the alien nodded.

I suppose that means yes, Jacob thought. I wonder if he can speak, what with any imaginable kind of mechanism lurking behind those huge lips.

But why was the creature just standing there? Was there something in its attitude ... ?

"Am I to assume that, that yours is a client species and you are waiting for permission to speak?"

The "lips" separated slightly and Jacob caught a glimpse of something bright and white. The alien nodded again.

"Well then speak up, please! We humans are notoriously short on protocol. What's your name?"

The voice was surprisingly deep. It hissed out of a barely widened mouth with a pronounced lisp.

"I am Culla, Shir. Thank you. I have been shent to make sure that you were not losht. If you will come with me, the othersh are waiting. Or, if you prefer, you can continue to meditate until the appointed time."

"No, no let's go, by all means." Jacob rose to his feet unsteadily. He closed his eyes for a moment to clear his mind of the last shreds of the trance. Sooner or later he would have to sort out what had happened, while he'd been under, but that would have to wait.

"Lead on."

Culla turned and walked with a slow, fluid gait toward one of the side doorways to the Center.

Culla was apparently a member of a "client" species—one whose period of indenture to its "patron" species was still active. Such a race rated low on the galactic pecking order. Jacob, mystified as he still was by the intricacies of galactic affairs, was glad that a tacky accident had won for humanity a better, if insecure, place on the hierarchy.

Culla led him upstairs to a large oaken door. He opened it without announcement and preceded Jacob into the meeting room.

Jacob saw two human beings and, besides Culla, two aliens: one short and furry, the other smaller still, and lizardlike. They were seated on cushions between some large indoor shrubs and a picture window overlooking the bay.

He tried to sort his impressions of the aliens before they noticed him, but had only a moment before someone spoke his name.

"Jacob, my friend! How kind it is for you to come and share with us your time!" It was Fagin's fluting voice. Jacob looked quickly about the room.

"Fagin, where ... ?"

"I am here."

He looked back at the group by the window. The humans and the furry E.T. were rising to their feet The lizard-alien remained on its cushion.

Jacob adjusted his perspective and suddenly one of the "indoor shrubs" was Fagin. The old Kanten's silver tipped foliage tinkled softly as if there were a breeze.

Jacob smiled. Fagin presented a problem whenever they met. With humanoids, one looked for a face, or something that served the same purpose. Usually it took only a little time to find a place in an alien's strange features on which to focus.

There was almost always a part of the anatomy that one learned to address as the seat of another awareness. Among humans and very often among E.T.'s, this focus was in the eyes.

A Kanten has no eyes. Jacob guessed that the bright silver objects that made the sound of tiny sleigh bells were Fagin's light receptors. If so, it still didn't help. One had to look at the whole of Fagin, not at some cusp of the ego. It made Jacob wonder which was the larger improbability: that he liked the alien despite this handicap, or that he still felt uneasy with him despite years of friendship.

Fagin's dark leafy body approached from the window in a series of twists that brought successive root-knots to the fore. Jacob gave him one medium-formal bow and waited.

"Jacob Alvarez Demwa, a-Human, ul-Dolphin-ul-Chimp, we welcome you. It pleases this poor being to sense you today, once again." Fagin spoke clearly, but with an uncontrolled singsong quality which made his accent sound like mixed Swedish and Cantonese. The Kanten did much better speaking dolphin or trinary.

"Fagin, a-Kanten, ab-Linten-ab-Siqul-ul-Nish, Mi-horki Keephu. It pleases me to see you once again." Jacob bowed.

"These venerable beings have come to exchange their wisdom with yours, Friend-Jacob," Fagin said. "I hope you are prepared for formal introductions."

Jacob set his mind to concentrate on the convoluted species names of each alien, at least as much as on their appearance. Patronymics and multiple client names would tell a great deal about the status of each. He nodded for Fagin to proceed.

"I will now formally introduce you to Bubbacub, a-Pil, ab-Kisa-ab-Soro-ab-Hul-ab-Puber-ul-Gello-ul-pring, of the Library Institute."

One of the E.T.'s stepped foward. Jacob's initial gestalt was of a four-foot, gray teddy bear. But a wide snout and fringe of cilia around the eyes belied that impression.

This was Bubbacub, director of the Branch Library! The Branch Library at La Paz consumed almost all of the meager trade balance which Earth had accumulated since contact. Even so, much of the prodigious effort of adapting a tiny "suburban" Branch to human referents was donated by the huge galactic Institute of the Library, as a charity, to help the "backward" human race catch up with the rest of the galaxy. As head of the Branch, Bubbacub was one of the most important aliens on Earth! His species name also implied high status, higher even than Fagin's!

The "ab" something-to-the-fourth meant that Bubbacub's species had been nurtured into sentience by another which had in turn been nurtured by another, and so forth back to the mythical beginning at the time of the Progenitors . . . and that four of these generations of "Parentals" were still alive somewhere in the galaxy. To be derived from such a chain meant status in a diffuse galactic culture whose every spacefaring species (with the possible lone exception of humanity) was brought up out of semi-intelligent savagery by some previous, space-traveling race.

The "ul" something squared said that the Pil race had in turn fostered two new cultures on their own. This too was status.

The one thing that had prevented the complete snubbing of the "orphan" human race by the Galactics was the fortunate fact that man had himself fostered new intelligent races twice before, the Vesarius had brought Contact with the E.T. civilization home to Earth.

The alien made a slight bow.

"I am Bubbacub."

The voice sounded artificial. It came from a disc that hung from the Pil's neck.

A Vodor! The Pil race required artificial assistance to speak English, then. From the simplicity of the device, much smaller than those used by alien visitors whose native tongues were twitters and squeaks, Jacob guessed that Bubbacub could actually pronounce human words, but in a frequency range beyond human hearing. He decided to assume that the being could hear him.

"I am Jacob. Welcome to Earth." He nodded.

Bubbacub's mouth snapped open and shut a few times silently.

"Thank you," the Vodor buzzed, in clipped, short words. "I am happy to be here."

"And I to be of service as your host." Jacob bowed ever so slightly deeper than he had seen Bubbacub do when he came forward. The alien seemed to be satisfied and stepped back.

Fagin recommenced his introductions.

"These worthy beings are of your race." A twig and a bunch of petals gestured vaguely in the direction of the two human beings. A gray-haired gentleman, dressed in tweed, stood next to a tall brown woman, in handsome middle age.

"I will now introduce you," Fagin continued, "in the informal manner preferred by humans.

"Jacob Demwa, meet Doctor Dwayne Kepler, of the Sundiver Expedition, and Doctor Mildred Martine, of the Department of Parapsychology at the University of La Paz."

Kepler's face was dominated by a substantial handlebar moustache. He smiled, but Jacob was too amazed to reply to his pleasantries with more than a monosyllable.

The Sundiver Expedition! The research on Mercury and in the solar chromosphere had been a football in the Confederacy Assembly, of late. The "Adapt & Survive" faction said that it made no sense to spend so much for knowledge that could be " pulled out of the Library, when the same appropriation could employ several times as many unemployed scientists here on Earth with make-work projects. The "Self-Sufficiency" faction had so far had its way, though, in spite of abuse from the Danikenite press.

But to Jacob it was the idea of sending men and ships down into a star that sounded like insanity of the first degree.

"Kant Fagin was enthusiastic in his recommendations," Kepler said. The Sundiver leader smiled, but his eyes were reddened. They bore puffy outlines from some inner worry. He pressed Jacob's hand in both of his own and pumped quickly as he spoke. His voice was deep but it did not hide a quaver.

"We came to Earth only for a little while. It's an answered prayer that Fagin was able to persuade you to meet with us. We really hope you can join us on Mercury and give us the benefit of your experience in interspecies contact."

Jacob started. Oh no, not this time you don't, you leafy monster! He wanted to turn and glare at Fagin but even informal intrahuman propriety required that he face these people and make small talk. Mercury indeed!

Dr. Martine's face fell easily into a pleasant smile but she looked a little bored as he shook her hand.

Jacob wondered if he could ask what parapsychology had to do with solar physics without sounding as if he were interested, but Fagin beat him to it.

"I intrude, as is generally considered acceptable in informal conversations among human beings when a pause has occurred. There remains one worthy being to introduce."

Oops, thought Jacob, I hope this Eatee's not one of the hypersensitive ones. He turned to where the lizardlike extraterrestrial stood, to his right, next to a multicolored wall mosaic. It had risen from its cushion and now moved on six legs toward them. It was less than a meter in length and about twenty centimeters high. It walked right past him without a glance and proceeded to rub itself against Bubbacub's leg.

"Ahem," Fagin said. "That is a pet. The worthy whom you are about to meet is the estimable client who brought you to this room."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Jacob grinned, then forced a serious expression onto his face.

"Jacob Demwa, a-Human, ul-Dolphin-ul-Chimp, please meet Culla, a-Pring, ab-Pil-ab-Kisa-ab-Soro-ab-Hul-ab-Puber, Assistant to Bubbacub ,of the Libraries and Representative of the Library with the Sundiver Project."

As Jacob had expected, the name had only patronymics. The Pring had no clients of their own. They were of the Puber/Soro line, though. Someday they would have high status as members of that old and powerful lineage. He had noticed that Bubbacub's species was also out of the Puber/Soro and wished he could recall if the Pila and Pring were Patron and Client.

The alien stepped forward but did not offer to shake hands. His hands were long and tentacular with six fingers each at the ends of long slender arms. They looked fragile. Culla had a faint odor, a bit like the smell of new mown hay, that was not at all unpleasant.

The huge columnar eyes flashed as Culla bowed for the formal introduction. The E.T.'s "lips" curled back to display a pair of white, gleaming, grindermashie things, one on top and one on the bottom. The partially prehensile lips brought the cleavers together with a white porcelain "clack!"

That can't be a friendly gesture where he comes from, Jacob shuddered. The alien probably pulled his huge dentures out to imitate a human smile. The sight was disturbing and at the same time intriguing. Jacob wondered what they were for. He also hoped that Culla would keep his ... lips curled back in the future.

Nodding-slightly he said, "I am Jacob."

"I am Culla, Shir," the alien replied. "Your Earth ish very pleasant." The great red eyes were now dull. Culla backed away.

Bubbacub led them back to the cushions by the window. The little Pil sprawled into a prone position with his quadrilaterally symmetric hands dangling over the sides of the cushion. The "pet" followed and curled up next to him.

Kepler leaned forward and spoke hesitantly.

"I'm sorry we dragged you away from your important work, Mr. Demwa. I know you're already heavily engaged ... I only hope that we can persuade you that, that our own little . . . problem is worth your time and worthy of your talents." Dr. Kepler's hands were knotted together on his lap.

Dr. Martine looked on Kepler's earnestness with an expression of mildly amused patience. There were nuances here that bothered Jacob.

"Well, Dr. Kepler, Fagin must have told you that since my wife's death, I've retired from the "mystery business," and I am pretty busy right now, probably too much so to get involved in a long journey off planet..."

Kepler's face fell. His expression became so bleak so suddenly that Jacob was moved.

". . . However, since Kant Fagin is a perceptive individual, I'll be happy to listen to anyone he refers to me, and decide on the merits of the case."

"Oh, you'll find this case interesting! I've been saying all along that we need fresh insight. And, of course, now that the Trustees have agreed to let us bring in some consultants ..."

"Now, Dwayne," Dr. Martine said. "You're not being fair. I came in as a consultant six months ago, and Culla brought the services of the Library even earlier. Now Bubbacub has kindly agreed to increase the Library support for the project and come personally with us to Mercury. I think the Trustees are being more than generous."

Jacob sighed.

"I wish someone would explain what this is all about. Like you, Dr. Martine, perhaps you can tell me what your job is ... on Mercury?" He found it difficult to say the word "Sundiver."

"I am a consultant, Mr. Demwa. I was hired to perform psychological and parapsychological tests on the crew and environment on Mercury."

"I assume they had to do with the problem Dr. Kepler mentioned?"

"Yes. It was thought at first that the phenomena were a hoax or some sort of mass-hallucination. I've eliminated both of those possibilities. It's clear now that they're real and actually take place in the solar chromosphere.

"For the last months I've been designing psi experiments to take down on solar dives. I've also been helping as a therapist for a number of Sundiver staff members; the pressures of conducting this kind of solar research have been telling on many of the men."

Martine sounded competent, but there was something about her attitude that put Jacob off. Flippancy, perhaps. Jacob wondered what else there was to her relationship with Kepler. Was she his personal therapist as well?

For that matter, am I here just to satisfy the whim of a sick, great man who must be kept going? The idea wasn't very attractive. Nor was the prospect of getting involved in politics.

Bubbacub, head of the entire Branch Library on Earth—why is he involved in an obscure Terran project? In some ways, the little Pil was the most important E.T. on the Planet outside of the Tymbrimi Ambassador. His Library Institute, the biggest and most influential of the galactic organizations, made Fagin's Institute of Progress look like a drum and tambourine outfit. Did Martine say he's going to Mercury?

Bubbacub stared at the ceiling, apparently ignoring the conversation. His mouth worked as though singing in some range inaudible to humans.

Culla's bright eyes were on the little Library Chief. Perhaps he could hear the singing, or perhaps he too was bored by the conversation so far.

Kepler, Martine, Bubbacub, Culla ... I never thought I'd be in a room in which Fagin was the least strange I The Kanten rustled nearby. Fagin was obviously excited. Jacob wondered what could have happened in the Sundiver project to get him so fired up.

"Dr. Kepler, it just might be possible that I could spare the time to help you out . . . maybe." Jacob shrugged. "But first, it would be nice to find out what this is all about!"

Kepler brightened.

"Oh, didn't I ever actually say it? Oh my. I guess I just avoid thinking about it these days . . . just skirt around the subject, so to speak."

He straightened and took a deep breath.

"Mr. Demwa, it appears that the Sun is haunted."

PART II

In prehistoric and early times the Earth was visited by unknown beings

from the cosmos. These unknown beings created human intelligence by a

deliberate genetic mutation. The extraterrestrials ennobled hominids

"in their own image." That is why we resemble them and not they us.

Erich Von Daniken Chariots of the Gods

The sublime mental activities, such

as religion, altruism and morality, all

evolved, and have a physical base.

Edward O. Wilson

On Human Nature

Harvard University Press

VIRTUAL IMAGE

The Bradbury was a new ship. It used a technology far ahead of its predecessors on the commercial line, taking off from sea level under its own power instead of riding to the station at the top of one of the equatorial "Needles," slung beneath a giant balloon. Bradbury was a huge sphere, titanically massive by earlier standards.

This was Jacob's first trip aboard a ship powered by the billion-year-old science of the Galactics. He watched from the first-class lounge as the Earth fell away, and Baja, California became first a brown rib, separating two seas, then a mere finger along the coast of Mexico. The view was breathtaking, but a bit disappointing. The roar and acceleration of a jetliner, or the slow majesty of a cruise-zep had more romance. And the few times he had left Earth before, rising and returning by balloon, there had been the other ships to watch, bright and busy as they floated up to Power Station or back down the pressurized interior of one of the Needles.

Neither of the great Needles had ever been boring. The thin ceram walls that held the twenty-mile towers at sea-level pressures had been painted with gigantic murals—huge swooping birds and pseudo science-fiction space battles copied from twenty-century magazines. It had never been claustrophobic.

Still, Jacob was glad to be aboard the Bradbury. Someday he might visit the Chocolate Needle, at the summit of Mt. Kenya, for nostalgia's sake. But the other one, the one in Ecuador—Jacob hoped never to see the Vanilla Needle again.

No matter that the great tower was only a stone's throw from Caracas. No matter that he would be given a hero's welcome, if ever he came there, as the man who had saved the one engineering marvel on Earth to impress even the Galactics.

Saving the Needle had cost Jacob Demwa his wife and a large portion of his mind. The price had been too high.

Earth had gained a visible disc when Jacob went off to look for the ship's bar. Suddenly he was in the mood for company. He hadn't felt that way when he came aboard. He'd had a rough time making excuses to Gloria and the others at the Center. Makakai had raised a fit. Also, many of the research materials on Solar Physics he'd ordered had not arrived and would have to be forwarded to Mercury. Finally, he'd let himself get into a stew wondering how he'd been talked into coming along in the first place.

Now he made his way along the main corridor, at the ship's equator, until he found the crowded, dimly lit Saloon. Inside he squeezed past lots of talking, drinking passengers to get to the bar.

About forty persons, many of them contract workers bound for skilled labor on Mercury, crowded into the Saloon. More than a few, having drunk too much, spoke loudly to their neighbors or simply stared. For some, departure from Earth came hard.

A few extraterrestrials rested on cushions in the corner set aside for them. One, a Cynthian with shiny fur and thick sunglasses, sat across from Culla, whose great head nodded silently while he sipped daintily with a straw between his huge lips, from what appeared to be a bottle of vodka.

Several humans stood near the aliens, typical of the Xenophiles who hang on every word of an eavesdropped E.T. conversation and who wait eagerly for chances to ask questions.

Jacob considered edging through the crowd to get to the E.T. corners The Cynthian might be someone he knew. But there were too many people at that end of the room. He chose instead to get a drink and see if anyone had started storytelling.

Soon he was part of a group listening to a mining engineer tell an enjoyably exaggerated tale of blow-ins and rescues in the deep Hermetian mines. Though he had to strain to hear over the noise, Jacob still felt he could conveniently ignore the headache that' was coming on ... at least long enough to listen to the end of the story, when a finger jabbed in his ribs made him jump.

"Demwa! It's you!" Pierre LaRoque cried. "How fortunate! We shall travel together and now I know that there will always be someone with whom I can exchange witticisms!"

LaRoque wore a loose shiny robe. Blue PurSmok drifted into the air from the pipe he puffed with earnest.

Jacob tried to smile but with someone behind him stepping on his heel, it came out more like gritting his teeth.

"Hello, LaRoque. Why are you going to Mercury? Wouldn't your readers be more interested in stories about the Peruvian excavations or..."

"Or similar dramatic evidence that our primitive ancestors were nurtured by ancient astronauts?" LaRoque interrupted. "Yes, Demwa, such evidence shall soon be so overwhelming that even the Skins and skeptics who sit on the Confederacy Council will see the error of their ways!"

"I see you wear the Shirt yourself." Jacob pointed to LaRoque's silvery tunic.

"I wear the robe of the Daniken Society on my last day on Earth, in honor of the older ones who gave us the power to go into space." LaRoque shifted pipe and drink into one hand and with the other straightened the gold medallion and chain that hung from his neck.

Jacob thought the effect was a bit theatrical for a grown man. The robe and jewelry seemed effeminate, in contrast to the Frenchman's gruff manner. He had to admit, though, that it went well with the outrageous, affected accent.

"Oh come on, LaRoque," Jacob smiled. "Even you have to admit we got into space by ourselves, and we discovered the extraterrestrials, not they us."

"I admit nothing!" LaRoque answered hotly. "When we prove ourselves worthy of the Patrons who gave us our intelligence in the dim past, when they acknowledge us, then we'll know how much they have covertly helped us all these years!"

Jacob shrugged. There was nothing new in the Skin-Shirt controversy. One side insisted that man should be proud of his unique heritage as a self-evolved race, having won intelligence from Nature herself on the savannah and shoreline of East Africa. The other side held that homo sapiens—just as every other known race of sophonts—was part of a chain of genetic and cultural uplifting that stretched back to the fabled early days of the galaxy, the time of the Progenitors.

Many, like Jacob, were studiously neutral in the conflict of views, but humanity, and humanity's client races, awaited the outcome with interest. Archeology and Paleontology had become the great new hobbies since Contact.

However, LaRoque's arguments were so stale they could be used for croutons. And the headache was getting worse.

"That's very interesting, LaRoque," he said as he began to edge past. "Perhaps we can discuss it some other time ..." But LaRoque wasn't finished yet.

"Space is filled with Neanderthaler sentiment, you know. The men on our ships would prefer to wear animal skins and grunt like apes! They resent the Older Ones, and they actively snub sensible people who practice humility!"

LaRoque made his point while jabbing in Jacob's direction with the stem of his pipe. Jacob backed away, trying to stay polite but having difficulty.

"Well, now I think that's going a little too far, LaRoque. I mean you're talking about astronauts! Emotional and political stability are prime criteria in their selection..."

"Aha! What you do not know about the very things you just mentioned! You joke, no? I know a thing or two about 'emotional and political stability' of astronauts!

"I'll tell you about it sometime," he continued. "Someday the whole story will come out, about the Confederacy's plan to isolate a large part of humanity away from the elder races, and from their heritage in the stars! All the poor 'unreliables'! But by then it will be too late to seal the leak!"

LaRoque puffed and exhaled a cloud of blue PurSmok in Jacob's direction. Jacob felt a wave of dizziness.

"Yeah, LaRoque, whatever you say. You've got to tell me about it some time." He backed away.

LaRoque glowered on for a moment, then grinned and patted Jacob on the back as he edged his way to the door.

"Yes," he said. "I'll tell you all about it. But meanwhile, better you should lie down. You don't look so good at all! Bye bye!" He slapped Jacob's back once more then slipped back into the bar.

Jacob walked to the nearest port and rested his head against the pane. It was cool and it helped to ease the throbbing in his forehead. When he opened his eyes to look out, the Earth was not in sight. . . only a great field of stars, shining unblinking against blackness. The brighter ones were surrounded by diffraction rays, which he could lengthen or shorten by squinting. Except for the brightness, the effect was no different than looking at the stars on a night in the desert. They didn't twinkle, but they were the same stars.

Jacob knew he should feel more. The stars when viewed from space should be more mysterious, more . . . "philosophical." One of the things he could remember best about his adolescence was the asolopsistic roar of starry nights. It was nothing like the oceanic feeling he now got through hypnosis. It had been like half-remembered dreams of another life.

He found Dr. Kepler, Bubbacub, and Fagin in the main lounge. Kepler invited him to join them.

The group settled around a cluster of cushions near the view ports. Bubbacub carried with him a cup of something that looked and, from a chance whiff, smelled noxious. Fagin ambled slowly, twisting on his root-pods, carrying nothing.

The row of ports that ran along the curved periphery of the ship was broken in the lounge by a large circular disc, like a giant round window, that touched floor and ceiling. The flat side protruded into the room about a foot. Whatever lay within was hidden behind a tightly fixed panel.

"We are glad that you made it," Bubbacub barked through his Vodor. He had sprawled on one of the cushions and, after saying this, dipped his snout into the cup he carried and ignored Jacob and the others. Jacob wondered if the Pil was trying to be sociable, or if he came by his charm naturally.

Jacob thought of Bubbacub as "he" because he had no idea at all about Bubbacub's true gender. Though Bubbacub wore no clothes, other than the Vodor and a small pouch, what Jacob could see of the alien's anatomy only confused matters. He had learned, for instance, that the Pila were oviparous and did not suckle their young. But a row of what appeared to be teats lay like shirt buttons from throat to crotch. He couldn't even guess at their purpose. The Datanet did not mention them. Jacob had ordered a more complete summary from the Library.

Fagin and Kepler were talking about the history of Sunships. Fagin's voice was muffled because his upper foliage and blowhole brushed against the soundproofing panels on the ceiling. (Jacob hoped that Kanten were not prone to claustrophobia. But then, what were talking vegetables afraid of anyway? Being nibbled on, he supposed. He wondered about the sexual mores of a race whose lovemaking required the intermediary of a sort of domesticated bumblebee.)

"Then these magnificent improvisations," Fagin said, "without benefit of the slightest help from outside, enabled you to convey packages of instruments into the very Photosphere! This is most impressive and I wonder that, in my years here, I never knew of this adventure of your period before Contact!"

Kepler beamed. "You must understand that the bathysphere project was only . . . the beginning, long before my time. When laser propulsion for pre-Contact interstellar craft was developed, they were able to drop robot ships that could hover and, by the thermodynamics of using a high temperature laser, they could dump excess heat and cool the probe's interior."

"Then you were only a short time away from sending men!"

Kepler smiled ruefully. "Well, perhaps. Plans were made. But sending living beings to the Sun and back involved more than just heat and gravity. The worst obstacle was the turbulence!

"It would have been great to see if we could have solved the problem, though." Kepler's eyes shone for a moment. "There were plans."

"But then the Vesarius found Tymbrimi ships in Cygnus," Jacob said.

"Yes. So we'll never find out. The plans were drawn up when I was just a boy. Now they're hopelessly obsolete. And it's probably just as well. . . . There would have been inescapable losses, even deaths, if we'd done it without stasis. . . . Control of timeflow is the key to Sundiver now, and I certainly wouldn't complain about the results."

The scientist's expression suddenly darkened. "That is, until now."

Kepler fell silent and stared at the carpet. Jacob watched him for a moment, then covered his mouth and coughed.

"While we're on the subject, I've noticed that there isn't any mention of Sun Ghosts on the Datanet, or even in a special request from the Library ... and I have a 1-AB permit. I was wondering if you could spare some of your reports on the subject, to study during the trip?"

Kepler looked away from Jacob nervously.

"We weren't quite ready to let the data off Mercury yet, Mr. Demwa. There . . . are political considerations to this discovery that, uh, will delay your briefing until we get to the base. I'm sure that all of your questions will be answered there." He looked so genuinely ashamed that Jacob decided to drop the matter for the moment. But this was not a good sign.

"I might take a liberty in adding one piece of information," Fagin said. "There has been another dive since our meeting, Jacob, and on that dive, we are told, only the first and more prosaic species of Solarian was observed. Not the second variety which has caused Dr. Kepler so much concern."

Jacob was still confused by the hurried explanations Kepler had given of the two types of Sun-creatures so far observed.

"Now I take it that type was your herbivore?"

"Not herbivore!" Kepler interjected. "A magnetovore. It feeds on magnetic field energy. That type is actually becoming rather well understood, however..."

"I interrupt! In the most unctuous wish that I be forgiven for the intrusion, I urge discretion. A stranger approaches." Fagin's upper branches rustled against the ceiling.

Jacob turned to look at the doorway, a bit shocked that anything would bring Fagin to interrupt another's sentence. Dismally he realized that this was still another sign that he had stepped into a politically tense situation, and he still knew none of the rules.

I don't hear anything, he thought. Then Pierre LaRoque stood at the door, a drink in his hand and his always florid face further flushed. The man's initial smile broadened when he saw Fagin and Bubbacub. He entered and gave Jacob a jovial slap on the back, insisting that he be introduced right away.

Jacob internalized a shrug.

He performed the introductions slowly. LaRoque was impressed, and he bowed deeply to Bubbacub.

"Ab-Kisa-ab-Soro-ab-Hul-ab-Puber! And two clients, what were they, Demwa? Jello and something? I'm honored to meet a sophont of the Soro line in person! I have studied the language of your ancestrals, whom we may someday show to be ours as well! The Soro tongue is so similar to Proto-Semitic, and Proto-Bantu also!"

Bubbacub's cilia bristled above his eyes. The Pil, through his Vodor, began to make voice with a complicated, alliterative, incomprehensible speech. Then the alien's jaws made short, sharp snaps and a high pitched growling could be heard, half amplified by the Vodor. From behind Jacob, Fagin answered in a clicking and rumbling tongue. Bubbacub turned to face him, black eyes hot as he answered with a throaty growl, waving a stubby arm in a slash in LaRoque's direction. The Kanten's trilling reply sent a chill down Jacob's back.

Bubbacub swiveled and stamped out of the room without a further word to the humans.

For a dumbfounded instant, LaRoque said nothing. Then, he looked at Jacob plaintively. "What is it I did, please?"

Jacob sighed, "Maybe he doesn't like being called a cousin of yours, LaRoque." He turned to Kepler to change the subject. The scientist was staring at the door through which Bubbacub left.

"Dr. Kepler, if you haven't any specific data on board, perhaps you could lend me some basic solar physics texts and some background histories on Sun-diver itself?"

"I'd be delighted to, Mr. Demwa." Kepler nodded. "I'll send them to you by dinner time." His mind appeared to be elsewhere.

"I too!" LaRoque cried. "I am an accredited journalist and I demand the background upon your infamous endeavor, Mr. Director!"

After a moment's startlement, Jacob shrugged. Have to hand it to LaRoque. Chutzhpa can be easily mistaken for resiliency.

Kepler smiled, as if he had not heard. "I beg your pardon?"

"The great conceit! This 'Sundiver Project" of yours, which takes money that could go to the deserts of Earth for reclamation, or to a greater Library for our world!

"The vanity of this project, to study what our betters understood perfectly before we were apes!"

"Now see here, sir. The Confederacy bar funded this research ..." Kepler reddened.

"Research! Ree-search it is. You re-search for that which is already in the Libraries of the Galaxy, and shame us all by making humans out to be fools!"

"LaRoque . . ." Jacob began, but the man wouldn't shut up.

"And what of your Confederacy! They stuff the Elders into reservations, like the old-time Indians of America! They keep access to the Branch Library out of the hands of the people! They allow continuation of this absurdity that all laugh at us for, this claim of spontaneous intelligence!" '

Kepler backed away from LaRoque's vehemence. The color drained out of his face and he stammered.

"I... I don't think..."

"LaRoque! Come on, cut it out!"

Jacob grabbed his shoulder and pulled him over to whisper urgently in his ear.

"Come on man, you don't want to shame us in front of the venerable Kanten Fagin, do you?"

LaRoque's eyes widened. Over Jacob's shoulder Fagin's upper foliage rustled audibly in agitation. Finally, LaRoque's gaze dropped.

The second embarrassment must have been enough for him. He mumbled an apology to the alien, and with a parting glare at Kepler, took his leave.

"Thanks for the special effects, Fagin," Jacob said after LaRoque was gone.

He was answered by a whistle, short and low.

REFRACTION

At 40 million kilometers, the Sun was a chained hell. It boiled in black space, no longer the brilliant dot that the children of Earth took for granted and easily, unconsciously, avoided with their eyes. Across millions of miles it pulled. Compulsively, one felt a need to look, but the. need was dangerous.

From the Bradbury, it had the apparent size of a nickel held a foot away from the eye. The specter was too bright to be endured undiminished. To "catch a glimpse" of this orb, as one sometimes did on Earth, would invite blindness. The Captain ordered the ship's stasis screens polarized and the regular viewing ports sealed.

The Lyot window was unshuttered in the lounge, so that passengers could examine the Lifegiver without injury.

Jacob paused in front of the round window in a late night pilgrimage to the coffee machine, half awake from a fitful sleep in his tiny stateroom. For minutes he stared, blank faced, still only half conscious, until a lisping voice roused him.

"Dish ish the way your shun looksh from the Aphelion of the orbit of Mercury, Jacob."

Culla sat at one of the card tables in the dimly lit lounge. Just behind the alien, above a row of vending machines, a wall clock read "04:30" in glowing numbers.

Jacob's sleepy voice was thick in his throat. "Have ... um,... are we that close already?"

Culla nodded. "Yeah."

The alien's lip grinders were tucked away. His big folded lips pursed and let out a whistle each time he tried to pronounce an English long "s." In the dim light his eyes reflected a red glow from the viewing window.

"We have only two more days until we arrive," the alien said. His arms were crossed on the table in front of him. The loose folds of his silver gown covered half of the surface.

Jacob, swaying slightly, turned to glance back at the port. The solar orb wavered before his eyes.

"Are you all right?" the Pring asked anxiously. He started to rise.

"No. No, please." Jacob held up his hand. "I'm just groggy. Not 'nuff sleep. Need coffee."

He shambled toward the vending machines, but halfway there he stopped, turned, and peered again at the image of the furnace-sun.

"It's red!" he grunted in surprise.

"Shall I tell you why while you get your coffee?" Culla asked.

"Yes. Please." Jacob turned back to the dark row of food and beverage dispensers, looking for a coffee spout.

"The Lyot window only allowsh in light in mono-chromatic form," Culla said. "It ish made of many round platesh; some polarizersh and some light retardersh. They are rotated with reshpect to one another to finely tune which wavelength ish allowed through.

"Itsh a most delicate and ingenioush device, although quite obsholete by Galactic standarsh . . . like one of the 'Shwiss' watchesh some humansh shtill wear in an age of electronicsh. When your people become adept with the Library such... Rube Goldbersh? . . . will be archaic."

Jacob bent forward to peer at the nearest machine. ,.

It looked like a coffee machine. There was a transparent panel door, and behind that a little platform with a metal grill drain at the bottom. Now, if he pushed the right button, a disposable cup should drop onto the platform and then, from some mechanical artery would pour a stream of the bitter black beverage he wanted.

As Culla's voice droned on in his ears, Jacob made polite sounds. "Uh, huh... yes, I see."

At the far left, one of the buttons was lit with a green light. On impulse, he pressed it.

He watched the machine blearily. Now! That was a buzz and a click! There's the cup! Now . . . what the hell?

A large yellow and green pill fell into the cup.

Jacob lifted the panel arid took out the cup. A second later a stream of hot liquid spilled through the empty space where the cup had been, disappearing in the drain below.

Dubiously, he glowered down at the pill. Whatever it was, it wasn't coffee. He rubbed his eyes with his left wrist, one at a time. Then he sent an accusing glance at the button he'd pressed.

That button had a label, he now saw. It read "E.T. Nutrient Synthesis." Below the label a computer card stuck out from a data slot. The words "Pring: Dietary Supplement—Coumarin Protein Complex" were printed along the protruding end.

Jacob looked quickly at Culla. The alien continued his explanation while he faced the Lyot window. Culla waved one arm toward the Sun's Dantean brilliance to emphasize a point.

"Thish ish now the red alpha line of Hydrogen," he said. "A very useful shpectral line. Inshtead of being overwhelmed by huge amountsh of random light from all levelsh of the Shun, we can now look at only those regions where elemental Hydrogen absorbsh or emitsh more than normal..."

Culla pointed to the Sun's mottled surface. It was covered with dark reddish speckles and feathery arches.

Jacob had read about them. The feathery arches were "filaments." Viewed against space, at the solar limb, they were the prominences that had been seen since the first time a telescope was used during an eclipse. Culla apparently was explaining the way these objects were viewed head-on.

Jacob considered. Throughout the voyage from Earth, Culla had refrained from eating his meals with the others. All he would do is sip an occasional vodka or beer with a straw. Although he had given no reasons, Jacob could only assume that the being had some cultural inhibition against eating in public.

Come to think of it, he thought, with those mashies for teeth it could get a little messy. Apparently I've barged in while he's having breakfast and he's too polite to mention it.

He glanced at the tablet which still lay in the cup in his hand. He dropped the pill into his jacket pocket and crumpled the cup into a nearby trash bin.

Now he could see the button which was labeled "Coffee-Black." He smiled ruefully. Maybe it would be best to skip the coffee and not run the risk of offending Culla. Although the E.T. had made no objections, he had kept his back turned while Jacob visited the food and beverage machines.

Culla looked up as Jacob approached. He opened his mouth slightly and for an instant the human caught a glimpse of white porcelain.

"Are you lesh . . . groggy, now?" the alien asked solicitously.

"Yesh, uh yes, thanks . . . thanks also for the explanation. I always thought of the Sun as a pretty smooth place . .. except for Sunspots and prominences. But I guess it's actually pretty complicated."

Culla nodded. "Doctor Kepler ish the expert. You will get a better explanation from him when you go on a dive wid ush."

Jacob smiled politely. How carefully these Galactic Emissaries were trained! When Culla nodded, was the gesture personally meaningful? Or was it something he had been taught to do at certain times and places around humans? Dive with us!?

He decided not to ask Culla to repeat the remark. Better not to press my luck, he thought. He started to yawn. Just in time he remembered to stifle it behind his hand. No telling what a similar gesture would mean on the Pring home planet! "Well, Culla, I think I'm going to go back to my room and try for a little more sleep. Thanks for the talk."

"You are mosht entirely welcome, Jacob. Good night."

He shuffled down the hall and barely made it to bed before he was fast asleep.

RETARDATION AND DIFFRACTION

A soft, pearly light suffused through the ports, illuminating the faces of those who watched Mercury glide beneath the descending ship.

Almost everyone who did not have a duty to perform was in the lounge, held to the row of viewing windows by the planet's terrible beauty. Voices were hushed, and conversations settled into small groups gathered around each port. For the most part the only sound was a faint crackling which Jacob couldn't identify.

The surface of the planet was gouged and scratched with craters and long rills. The shadows cast by the mountains of Mercury were vacuum sharp in their blackness, set against bright silvers and browns. In many ways the place resembled the Earth's moon.

There were differences. In one area a whole piece had been torn off in some ancient cataclysm. The scar made a deep series of grooves on the side that faced the Sun. The terminator ran starkly along the edge of the indention, a sharp borderline of day and night.

Down there, in places where shadow did not fall, a rain of seven different types of fire fell. Protons, x-rays spun off from the planet's magnetosphere and the simple blinding sunshine itself mixed with other deadly things to make the surface of Mercury as unlike the moon as anyplace could be.

It seemed like a place where one could find ghosts. A purgatory.

He remembered a line from an ancient pre-Haiku Japanese poem that he had read only a month before:

More sad thoughts crowd into my mind When evening comes; for then, Appears your phantom shape— Speaking as I have known you speak.

"Did you say something?"

Jacob started from the mild: trance and saw Dwayne Kepler standing next to him.

"No, nothing much. Here's your jacket." He handed the folded garment to Kepler, who took it with a grin.

"Sorry, but biology strikes at the most unromantic times. In real life space travelers have to go to the bathroom too. Bubbacub seems to find this velour fabric irresistible. Every time I put my jacket down to do something I come back to find that he's gone to sleep on it. I'm going to have to purchase some for him when we get back to Earth. Now what were we talking about before I left?"

Jacob pointed down at the surface below. "I was just thinking . . . now I understand why astronauts call the moon "The Playpen.' You certainly have to be more cautious here."

Kepler nodded. "Yes, but it's a whole lot better than working on some stupid 'make-work' project at home!" Kepler paused for a moment, as if he were about to go on to say something scathing. But the passion leaked away before he could continue. He turned to the port and gestured at the view below. "The early observers, Antoniodi and Schiaparelli, called this area Charit Regio. That huge ancient crater over there is Goethe." He pointed to a jumble of darker material in a bright plain. "It's very close to the North Pole, and underneath it is the network of caves that makes Hermes Base possible."

Kepler was the perfect picture, now, of the dignified scholarly gentleman, except for the times when one end or the other of his long sandy-colored moustache was in his mouth. His nervousness appeared to ease as they approached Mercury and the Sundiver Base where he was boss.

But at times during the trip, particularly when a conversation turned to uplift or the Library, Kepler's face took on the expression of a man with a great deal to say and no way to say it. It was a nervous, embarrassed look, as if he were afraid of expressing his opinions out of fear of rebuke.

After some pondering, Jacob thought he knew part of the reason. Although the Sundiver chief had said nothing explicit to give himself away, Jacob was convinced that Dwayne Kepler was religious.

In the midst of the Shirt-Skin controversy and Contact with extraterrestrials, organized religion had been torn apart.

The Danikenites proselytized their faith in some great (but not omnipotent) race of beings that had intervened in man's development and might do so again. The followers of the Neolithic Ethic preached the palpable presence of the "spirit of man."

And the mere existence of thousands of space-traveling races, few professing anything similar to the tenets of the old faiths of earth, did grievous harm to concepts of an all-powerful, anthropomorphic God.

Most of the formal creeds had either co-opted one side or another in the Shirt-Skin conflict or devolved into philosophical theism. The armies of the faithful had mostly flocked to other banners, and those who remained were quiet amid all of the uproar.

Jacob had often wondered if they were waiting for a Sign.

If Kepler were a Believer, it would explain some of his caution. There was enough unemployment among scientists these days. Kepler wouldn't want to risk adding his own name to the rolls by getting a reputation as a fanatic.

Jacob thought it a shame that the man felt that way. It would have been interesting to hear his views. But he respected Kepler's obvious wish for privacy in that area.

What attracted Jacob's professional interest was the way in which the, isolation might have contributed to Kepler's mental problems. Something more than just a philosophical quandary was at work in the man's mind, something that now and then impaired his effectiveness as a leader and his self-confidence as a scientist.

Martine, the psychologist, was often with Kepler, reminding him regularly to take his medication from the vials of diverse, multicolored pills that he carried' in his pockets.

Jacob felt old habits coming back, undulled by recent quiet months at the Center for Uplift. He wanted to know what those pills were, almost as much as he wished to know what .Mildred Martine's real job was on Sundiver.

Martine was still an enigma to Jacob. In all of their conversations aboard ship he failed to penetrate the woman's damnable friendly detachment Her amused condescension toward him was just as pronounced as Dr. Kepler's exaggerated confidence in him. The dark woman's thoughts were elsewhere.

Martine and LaRoque hardly glanced out their port. Instead, Martine was talking about her research into the effects of color and glare on psychotic behavior. Jacob had heard about this at the Ensenada meeting. One of the first things Martine had done on joining Sundiver was to have environmental psychogenic effects brought to a minimum, in case the "phenomena" turned out to be a stress-illusion.

Her friendship with LaRoque had grown over the trip out as she listened, rapt, to story after contradicting story about lost civilizations and ancient visitors to Earth. LaRoque responded to the attention by calling up the eloquence for which he was famous. Several times their private conversations in the lounge had gathered crowds. Jacob listened in a couple of times, himself. LaRoque could evoke a great deal of sensitivity when he tried.

Still Jacob felt less comfortable around the man than he did with any of the other passengers. He preferred the company of more straightforward beings, such as Culla. Jacob had come to like the alien. Notwithstanding the huge complex eyes and incredible dental work, the Pring had tastes akin to his on a wide range of subjects.

Culla had been full of ingenuous questions about Earth and humans, most of all regarding the way humans treated their client races. When he learned that Jacob had actually participated in the project to raise chimpanzees, dolphins and, recently, dogs and gorillas, to full sapiency, he began to treat Jacob with even more respect.

Culla never once referred to Earth's technology as archaic or obsolete, although everyone knew that it was unique in the galaxy for its quaintness. No other race in living memory had, after all, had to invent everything itself from ground zero. The Library saw to that. Culla was enthusiastic about the benefits the Library would bring to his human and chimpanzee friends.

Once, the E.T. followed Jacob into the ship's gymnasium and watched, rapt, with those huge red oculars, as Jacob went into one of his marathon conditioning sessions, one of several during the trip out from Earth. During rests Jacob found that the Pring had already learned the art of telling off-color jokes. The Pring race must have similar sexual mores to those of contemporary humanity, for the punchline ". . . now we're only haggling over the price," seemed to have the same meaning for both.

It was the jokes more than anything else that made Jacob realize how very far away from home the slender Pring diplomat was. He wondered if Culla was as lonely as he would be in that situation.

In their subsequent discussion of whether Tuborg or L-5 was the best brand of beer, Jacob had to struggle to remember that this was an alien, not a lisping, overly polite human being. But the lesson had been brought home when, in the course of a conversation, they found themselves separated by a sudden, unbridgeable gap-Jacob had told a story about Earth's old class struggles that Culla failed to understand. He tried to illustrate the point of it with a Chinese proverb: "A peasant always hangs himself in his landlord's doorway."

The alien's eyes suddenly became bright and Jacob for the first time heard an agitated clacking coming from Culla's mouth. Jacob had stared for a moment, then moved quickly to change the subject.

All things considered, however, Culla had the closest thing to a human sense of humor of any extraterrestrial he had met. Fagin excepted, of course.

Now, as they approached the landing, the Pring stood silently near his Patron—his expression, and Bubbacub's, once again unreadable.

Kepler tapped him gently on the arm. The scientist pointed at the port. "Pretty soon, now, the Captain will tighten up the Stasis Screens and begin to cut down the rate at which she lets space-time leak in. You'll find the effects interesting."

"I thought the ship sort of let the fabric of space slip past it, like riding a surfboard into a beach."

Kepler smiled.

"No, Mr. Demwa. That's a common fallacy. Space-surfing is just a phrase used by popularizers. When I speak of space-time I'm not talking about a 'fabric.' Space is not a material.

"Actually, as we approach a planetary singularity— a distortion in space caused by a planet—we must adopt a constantly changing metric, or set of parameters by which we measure space and time. It's as if nature wants us to gradually change the length of our meter sticks and the pace of our clocks whenever we get close to a mass."

"I take it the Captain is controlling our approach by allowing this change to take place slowly?"

"Exactly right! In the old days, of course, the adaptation was more violent. One adapted one's metric either by braking continuously with rockets until touchdown, or by crashing into the planet. Now we just roll up excess metric like a bolt of cloth in stasis. Ah! There goes that 'material' analogy again!"

Kepler grinned.

"One of the useful by-products of this is commercial grade neutronium, but the main purpose is to get us down safely."

"So when we finally start stuffing space into a bag, what will we see?"

Kepler pointed to the port.

"You can see it happening now."

Outside, the stars were going out. The tremendous spray of bright pinpoints which even the darkened screens had let through slowly faded as they watched. Soon only a few were left, weak and ochre colored against the blackness.

The planet below changed as well.

The light reflected from Mercury's surface was no longer hot and brittle. It took on an orange tint. The surface was quite dark now.

And it was getting closer, too. Slowly, but visibly, the horizon flattened. Surface objects only barely discerned earlier came into focus as the Bradbury settled lower.

Large craters opened up to show smaller craters within. As the ship descended past the ragged edge of one of these, Jacob saw it too was covered with still smaller pits, each similar in shape to the larger ones.

The tiny planet's horizon disappeared behind a range of mountains, and Jacob lost all perspective. With every minute of descent the ground below looked the same. How could you tell how high up you were? Is that thing just below us a mountain, or a boulder, or are we going to touch down in just a second or two and is it just a rock?

He sensed nearness. The gray shadows and orange outcrops seemed close enough to touch.

Expecting the ship to come to rest at any moment, he was surprised when a hole in the ground rushed up to engulf them.

As they prepared to disembark, Jacob remembered with a shock what he had been doing when he slipped into a light trance earlier, holding Kepler's jacket during the descent.

Surreptitiously, and with great skill, he had picked Kepler's pockets, taking a sample of every medication and removing a small pencil stub without smudging the fingerprints. They made a neat lump in Jacob's side pocket now, too small to stand out against the taper of his jacket.

So it's started already, he groaned.

Jacob's jaw tightened.

This time, he thought, I'm going to solve it myself!

I don't need help from my alter ego. I'm not going to go around breaking and entering!

He struck his balled fist against his thigh to drive out the itchy, satisfied feeling in his fingers.

PART III

The transition region between the corona and

photosphere (the surface of the sun as seen in white

light) appears during an eclipse as a bright red

ring around the sun, and is therefore called the

chromosphere. When the chromosphere is examined

closely, it is seen to be not a homogeneous layer

but a rapidly changing filamentary structure. The

term "burning prairie" has been used to describe it

Numerous short-lived jets called "spicules" are

continuously shooting up to heights of several

thousand kilometers. The red color is due to the

dominance of radiation in the H-alpha line of

hydrogen. The problems of understanding what

is going on in such a complex region are great....

Harold Zirin

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.

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.

12.

GRAVITY

Automation kept the Telemetry Room small. A mere dozen consoles made two rows below a large viewing screen. Behind a railing, on a raised dais, the invited guests watched as the operators carefully rechecked the recorded data.

Occasionally a man, male or female, would lean forward and peer at some detail on a screen, in vain hope for a clue that a Sunship still existed down there.

Helene deSilva stood near the pair of consoles closest to the dais. From there the recording of Jeffrey's last remarks played on a visual display.

A row of words appeared, representing fingerstrokes on a keyboard forty million kilometers away, hours before.

RIDE IS SMOOTH ON AUTOMATICS . . . HAD TO DAMP TIME FACTOR OF TEN DURING TURBULENCE ... I JUST HAD LUNCH IN TWENTY SECONDS HA HA...

Jacob smiled. He could imagine the little chimpanzee getting a kick out of the tune differential.

DOWN PAST TAU POINT ONE NOW . . . FIELD LINES CONVERGING AHEAD . . . INSTRUMENTS

SAY THERE'S A HERD THERE JUST LIKE HELENE SAID . . . ABOUT A HUNDRED . . . CLOSING NOW... .

Then Jeffrey's simian voice came on, gruff, abrupt, over a loudspeaker.

"Wait 'til I tell em inna trees, boys! First solo onna Sun! Eat yer heart out, Tarzan!" one of the controllers started to laugh, then cut it off. It finished sounding like a sob.

Jacob started. "You mean he was all alone down there?"

"I thought you knew!" deSilva looked surprised. "The dives are pretty well automatic nowadays. Only a computer can adjust the stasis fields fast enough to keep the turbulence from pounding a passenger to jelly. Jeff . , . had two: one onboard and also a laser remote from the big machine here on Mercury. What can a man do anyway, besides add a touch here or there?"

"But why add any risk?"

"It was Dr. Kepler's idea," she answered, a little defensively. "He wanted to see if it was only human psi patterns that were causing the Ghosts to run away or make threatening gestures."

"We never got to that part of the briefing."

She brushed a lock of blonde hair back.

"Yes, well in our first few encounters with the magnetovores, we never saw any of the herdsmen. Then when we did, we watched from a distance to determine their relationship to the other creatures.

"When we finally approached, the herdsmen just ran away at first. Then their behavior changed radically. While most of them fled, one or two would arc up over the ship, out of the plane of the instrument platform, and come down close to the ship!"

Jacob shook his head, "I'm not sure I understand ..."

DeSilva glanced at the nearest console but there was no change.. The only reports from Jeff's ship were solonomic data—routine reports of solar conditions.

"Well, Jacob, the ship is a flat deck inside an almost perfectly reflecting shell. The Gravity Engines, Stasis Field Generators and the Refrigerator Laser are all in the smaller sphere that" sits in the middle of the deck. The recording instruments line the rim of the deck on the "bottom" side, and the people occupy the "top" side, so both will have an unobstructed view to anything looked at edge on. But we hadn't counted on anything purposely dodging our cameras!";

"If the Ghost went out of view of your instruments by coming up overhead, why didn't you just turn the ship? You have complete gravity control."

"We tried. They just disappeared! Or worse; they stayed overhead however fast we'd turn. They'd just hover I That's when some of the crew started seeing some of the most damnable anthropoid shapes!"

Suddenly Jeffrey's raspy voice filled the room again.

"Hey! There's a whole pack of sheep dogs pushin' those toroids around! Coin' in to give em a pet! Nice Doggies!"

Helene shrugged.

"Jeff was always a skeptic. He never saw any shapes-in-the-ceiling and he always called the herdsmen 'sheep dogs' because he saw nothing in their behavior to imply intelligence."

Jacob smiled wryly. The condescension of super-chimp toward the canine race was one of the more humorous aspects of their me-too obsession. Also perhaps it diluted their sensitivity over the special relationship, of dog with human being, that antedated their own. Many chimps kept dogs as pets.

"He called the magnetovores toroids?"

"Yes, they're shaped like huge doughnuts. You would have seen that if the briefing hadn't . . . been interrupted." She shook her head sadly and looked down.

Jacob shifted his feet. "I'm sure there's nothing anyone could have done . . ." he began. Then he realized that he was sounding foolish. DeSilva nodded once and turned back to the console; busy, or pretending to be, with technical readouts.

Bubbacub lay sprawled on a cushion to the left, near the barrier. He had a book play-back in his hands and had been reading, in total absorption, the alien characters that flashed from top to bottom on the tiny screen. The Pil had raised his head and listened when Jeffrey's voice came on, and then gazed enigmatically at Pierre LaRoque.

LaRoque's eyes flashed as he recorded an "historic moment." Occasionally he spoke In a low excited voice into the microphone of his borrowed steno-camera.

"Three minutes," deSilva said thickly.

For a minute, nothing happened. Then, the big letters came on the screen again.

THE BIG BOYS ARE HEADING TOWARD ME FOR ONCE! OR AT LEAST A COUPLE OF 'EM ARE. I JUST TURNED ON THE CLOSEUP CAMERAS .. . HEY! I'M GETTIN A T-T-TILT IN HERE! TIME-COMPRESSION JAMMED!!

"Gonna abort!" came the deep, croaking voice, suddenly. "Ridin' up fast. . . . More tilt! 'S' falling! . .. The Eatees! They..."

There came a very brief burst of static, then silence followed by a loud hiss as the console operator turned up his gain. Then, nothing.

For a long moment nobody said a word. Then one of the console operators rose from his station.

"Implosion confirmed," he said.

She nodded once. "Thank you. Please prepare a summary of the data for transmission to Earth."

Strangely, the strongest emotion Jacob felt was a poignant pride. As a staff member of the Center for Uplift, he'd noticed that Jeffrey spurned his keyboard in the last moments of his life. Instead of retreating before fear, he made a proud, difficult gesture. Jeff the Earthman spoke aloud.

Jacob wanted to mention this to somebody. If anyone could, Fagin would understand.. He started over to where the Kanten stood, but Pierre LaRoque hissed sharply before he got there.

"Fools I" The journalist stared about with an expression of disbelief.

"And I am the biggest fool of all! Of any here I should have seen the danger in sending a chimpanzee down to the Sun alone!"

The room was silent. Blank expressions of surprise turned to LaRoque, who waved his arms in an expansive gesture.

"Can you not see? Are you all blind? If the Solarians are our Ancestrals, and there can be little doubt of that, then they have obviously gone to great pains to avoid us for millennia. Yet perhaps some distant affection for us has kept them from destroying us so far!

"They have tried to warn you and your Sunships off ( in ways that you could not ignore, and yet you persist in trespassing. How are these mighty beings to react, then, if they are burst upon by a Client race of the race they have abandoned? What is it you expect them to do when they are invaded by a monkey . . . !"

Several crewmen rose to their feet in anger. DeSilva had to raise her voice to get them to subside. She faced LaRoque, an expression of iron control on her features.

"Sir, if you will please put your interesting hypothesis down on paper, with a minimum of invective, the staff will be only too happy to consider it."

"But..."

"And that will be enough on the subject now! We'll have plenty of time to talk about it later!"

"No, we don't have any time at all."

Everyone turned. Dr. Martine stood at the back of the Gallery, in the doorway. "I think we'd better discuss this right now," she said.

"Is Dr. Kepler all right?" Jacob asked.

She nodded. "I've just come from his bedside. I managed to break him out of his shock and he's sleeping now. But before he fell asleep he spoke rather urgently about making another dive right away."

"Right away? Why? Shouldn't we wait until we know for certain what happened to Jeffrey's ship?"

"We know what happened to Jeff's ship!" she answered sharply. "I overheard what Mr. LaRoque said just as I came in, and I'm not at all happy with the way you all received his idea! You're all so hidebound and sure of yourselves that you can't listen to a fresh approach!"

"You mean you really think that the Ghosts are our Ancestral Patrons?" DeSilva was incredulous.

"Perhaps, and perhaps not. But the rest of his explanation makes sense! After all, did the Solarians ever do more than threaten before this? And now they suddenly became violent. Why? Could it be that they felt no compunctions over killing a member of a species as immature as Jeff's?"

She shook her head sadly.

"You know, it's only a matter of time before human beings begin to realize just how much we're going to e to adapt! The fact is that every other oxygen-breathing race subscribes to a status system ... a pecking order based on seniority, strength, and parentage. Many of you don't find this nice. But it's the way things are! And if we don't want to go the way of the non-European races in the nineteenth century, we'll just have to learn the way other, stronger species like to be treated!"

Jacob frowned.

"You're saying that if a chimpanzee is killed, and human beings are threatened or snubbed, then ..."

"Then perhaps the Solarians don't want to mess around with children and pets . . ." One of the operators pounded his fist onto his console. A glare from deSilva cut him off. ". . . but might be willing to speak with a delegation with members of older, more experienced species. After all, how do we even know until we try?"

"Culla's been down there with us on most of our dives," the console operator muttered. "And he's a trained ambassador!"

"With all due respect to Pring Culla," Martine bowed slightly toward the tall alien. "He is from a very young race. Almost as young as ours. If s apparent that the Solarians don't think he's any more worthy than us of their attention.

"No, I propose that we take advantage of the unprecedented presence here on Mercury of two members of ancient and honored races. We should humbly ask the Pil Bubbacub and Kant Fagin to join us, down in the Sun, in one last attempt to make contact!"

Bubbacub rose slowly. He looked around deliberately, aware that Fagin would wait for him to speak first. "If human beings say they need me down on Sol, then despite the seen dangers of prim-it-ive Sunships, I be inc-lined to ac-cept."

He returned complacently to his cushion.

Fagin rustled and his voice sighed. "I too shall be pleased to go. Indeed, I would perform any labor to earn the lowest berth on such a craft. I cannot imagine what help I could be. But I will happily go along."

"Well I object, damnit!" deSilva shouted. "I refuse to accept the political implications of taking Pil Bubbacub and Kant Fagin down, particularly after the accident! You talk of good relations with powerful alien races, Dr. Martine, but can you imagine what would happen if they died down there in an Earth ship?"

"Oh fish and falafal!" Martine said. "If anyone can handle things so no blame falls on Earth, it's these sophonts. The galaxy is a dangerous place, after all. I'm sure they could leave depositions or something."

"Such documents are already recorded in my case." Fagin said.

Bubbacub, as well, stated his magnanimous willingness to risk his life in a primitive craft, absolving all of responsibility. The Pil turned away as LaRoque began to thank him. Even Martine joined in asking the man to please shut up.

DeSilva looked to Jacob. He shrugged.

"Well, we've got time. Let's give the crew here a chance to check the data from Jeff's dive, and let Dr. Kepler recover. Meanwhile we can refer this idea to Earth for suggestions."

Martine sighed. "I wish it were that simple, but you just haven't thought this out. Consider, if we were to try to make peace with the Solarians, shouldn't we return to the same group that was offended by Jeff's visit?"

"Well, I'm not sure that necessarily follows, but it sounds right."

"And how do you plan to find the same group, down in the solar atmosphere?"

"I suppose you'd just have to return to the same active region, where the grazers are feeding. . . . Oh, I see what you mean."

"I'll bet you do," she smiled. "There is no permanent 'Solography' down there to make a map from. The active regions, and sunspots themselves, fade away in a matter of weeks! The Sun has no surface, per se, only different levels and densities of gas. Why, the equator even rotates faster than the other latitudes! How are you ever going to find the same group if you don't leave right away, before the damage done by Jeff's visit spreads over the entire star?"

Jacob turned to deSilva, puzzled. "Do you think she might be right, Helene?"

She rolled her eyes upward. "Who knows? Maybe. It's something to think about I do know that we aren't going to do a damn thing until Dr. Kepler is well enough to be heard."

Dr. Martine frowned. "I told you before! Dwayne agreed that another expedition should leave right away!"

"And I'll hear from him personally!" deSilva answered hotly.

"Well, here I am, Helene."

Dwayne Kepler stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. Beside him, supporting his arm. Chief Physician Laird glared across the room at Dr. Martine.

"Dwayne! What are you doing out of bed! Do you want a heart attack?" Martine strode toward him, furious and concerned, but Kepler waved her back.

"I'm fine, Millie. I've just diluted that prescription you gave me, that's all. In a smaller dose it really is useful, so I know you meant well. It's just that it wasn't helping to knock me out like that!"

Kepler chuckled weakly. "Anyway, I'm glad I wasn't too doped up to hear your brilliant speech. I caught most of it from the doorway."

Martine reddened.

Jacob felt relieved that Kepler didn't mention the part he had played. After landing and obtaining Laboratory space, it had seemed a waste not to go ahead and analyze the samples he'd pilfered, back on the Bradbury, of Kepler's pharmacopoeia.

No one asked where he got his samples, fortunately. Although the base surgeon, when consulted, thought that some of the doses seemed a bit high, all but one of the drugs turned out to be standard for treatment of mild manic states.

The unknown drug stayed at the back of- Jacob's mind; one more mystery to solve. What sort of physical problem did Kepler have that required large doses of a powerful anticoagulant? Physician Laird had been incensed. Why had Martine prescribed Warfarin?

"Are you sure you're well enough to be up here now?" deSilva asked Kepler. She helped the physician guide him to a chair.

"I'm all right," he answered. "Besides, there are things that just won't wait.

"First of all, I'm not at all sure about Millie's theory that the Ghosts would greet Pil Bubbacub or Kant Fagin with more enthusiasm than they've shown to the rest of us. I do know that I'm definitely not taking responsibility for taking them down on a dive! The reason is that if they were killed down there it wouldn't be at the hands of the Solarians ... it would be caused by human beings! There should be another dive right away ... without our distinguished extraterrestrial friends, of course . .. but it should leave immediately to go to the same region, as Millie suggested."

DeSilva shook her head emphatically. "I don't agree at all, sir! Either Jeff was killed by the Ghosts, or something went wrong with his ship. And I think it was the latter, much as I hate to admit it.... We should check everything out before ..."

"Oh, there's no doubt it was the ship," Kepler interrupted. "The Ghosts didn't kill anybody."

"What is it you say?" LaRoque shouted. "Are you a blind man? How can you deny the obvious facts!"

"Dwayne," Martine said smoothly. "You're much too tired to think about this now." Kepler just waved her away.

"Excuse me, Dr. Kepler," Jacob said. "You mentioned something about the danger coming from human beings? Commandant deSilva probably thinks you meant an error in propping Jeff's ship caused his death. Are you talking about something else?"

"I just want to know one thing," Kepler said slowly. "Did the telemetry show that Jeff's ship was destroyed by a collapse of his stasis field?

The console operator who had spoken earlier stepped" forward. "Why... yessir. How did you know?"

"I didn't know," he smiled. "But I guessed pretty well, once I thought of sabotage."

"What!?" Martine, deSilva and LaRoque shouted almost at once.

And suddenly Jacob saw it. "You mean during the tour ....?" He turned to look at LaRoque. Martine followed his eyes and gasped.

LaRoque stepped back as if he had been struck. "You are an insane man!" he cried. "And you are as well!" He shook a finger at Kepler. "How could I have sabotaged the engines when I was sick all of the time I was in that crazy place?"

"Hey look, LaRoque," Jacob said. "I didn't say anything, and I'm sure Dr. Kepler is only speculating." He ended in a question and raised an eyebrow to Kepler.

Kepler shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm serious. LaRoque spent an hour next to Jeff's Gravity Generators, with no one else around. We checked the Grav Generator for any damage that might have been caused by anyone fumbling around with their bare hands, and we didn't find any. It didn't occur to me until later to check Mr. LaRoque's camera.

"When I did, I found that one of its little attachments is a small sonic stunner!" From one of the pockets of his tunic he pulled out the small recording device. "This is how the kiss of Judas was delivered!"

LaRoque reddened. "The stunner is a standard self-defense device for journalists. I had even forgotten about it. And it could never have harmed so big a machine!

"And all of that is beside the point! This terra-chauvinist, archlaeo-religious lunatic, who has nearly destroyed all chance of meeting our Patrons as friends, dares to accuse me of a crime for which there is no motive! He murdered that poor monkey, and he wishes to thlrow the blame on someone else!"

"Shut up, LaRoque," deSilva said evenly. She turned back to Kepler.

"Are you aware of what you're saying, sir? A Citizen wouldn't commit murder, simply out of dislike for an individual. Only a Probationary Personality could kill without dire cause. Can you think of any reason Mr. LaRoque might have had to do such a drastic thing?"

"I don't know," Kepler shrugged. He peered at LaRoque. "A Citizen who feels justified in killing still feels remorse afterward. Mr. LaRoque doesn't look like he regrets anything, so either he's innocent, or a good actor... or he is a Probationer after all!"

"In space!" Martine cried. "That's impossible, Dwayne. And you know it. Every spaceport is loaded with P-receivers. And every ship is equipped with detectors also! Now you should apologize to Mr. LaRoque!"

Kepler grinned.

"Apologize? At the very least I know LaRoque lied about being 'dizzy' in the gravity loop. I sent a maser-gram to Earth. I wanted a dossier on him from his paper. They were only too happy to oblige.

"It seems that Mr. LaRoque is a trained astronaut! He was separated from the Service for 'medical reasons'— a phrase that's often used when a person's P-test scores rise to probation levels and he's forced to give up a sensitive job I

"That may not prove anything, but it does mean that LaRoque has had too much experience in spaceships to have been 'scared to death" in Jeffrey's gravity loop. I only wish I realized this conflict in time to warn Jeff."

LaRoque protested and Martine objected, but Jacob could see the tide of opinion in the room turn against them. DeSilva eyed LaRoque with a cold feral gleam that startled Jacob somewhat.

"Wait a minute," he held up a hand. "Why don't we check if there are any Probationers without transmitters here on Mercury. I suggest we all have our retina patterns sent back to Earth for verification. If Mr. LaRoque isn't listed as a Probationer, it will be up to Dr. Kepler to show why a Citizen might have thought he had reason to murder."

"All right, then, for Kukulkan's sake, let us do it now!" LaRoque said. "But only on the condition that I not be singled out!" For the first time Kepler began to look unsure.

For Kepler's benefit, deSilva ordered the entire base reduced to Mercurian gravity. The Control Center answered that the conversion would take about five minutes. She went on the intercom and announced the identity test to the crew and visitors, then left to supervise the preparations.

Those in the Telemetry Room began to drift out, on their way to the elevators. LaRoque kept close to Kepler and Martine, as if to demonstrate his eagerness to disprove the charges against him, his chin raised in an expression of high martyrdom.

The three of them, plus Jacob and two crewmen, were waiting for an elevator car when the gravity change happened. It was an ironic place for it to occur for it felt as if the floor had suddenly started to drop.

They were all used to changes in gravity—many places in Hermes Base were kept off Earth Gee. But usually the transition was through a stasis-controlled doorway, itself no more pleasant than this but, from familiarity, less disconcerting. Jacob swallowed hard and one of the crewmen staggered slightly. In a sudden violent motion LaRoque dove for the camera in Kepler's hand. Marline gasped and Kepler grunted in surprise. The crewman who grabbed after the journalist got a fist in the face as LaRoque twisted like an acrobat and began to run backward down the hall, bringing up his recaptured camera. Jacob and the other crewman gave chase, instinctively.

There was a flash and a shooting pain in Jacob's shoulder. Something in his mind spoke as he dove to avoid another stunner bolt. It said, "Okay, this is my job. I'm taking over now."

He was standing in a hallway, waiting. It had been exciting, but now it was sheer hell. The passageway dimmed for a moment. He gasped and reached to steady himself on the rough wall as his vision cleared.

He was alone in a service corridor with a pain in his shoulder and the remnants of a deep, almost smug sense of satisfaction dissipating like a fading dream. He looked carefully around himself, then sighed.

"So you took over and thought you could handle it without me, didn't you?" he grunted. The shoulder tingled as if it was just now coming awake.

How his other half had got loose Jacob had no idea, nor why it had tried to handle things without the main persona's help. But it must have run into trouble to have given up now.

A sensation of resentment answered that thought. Mr. Hyde was sensitive about his limitations, but capitulation came at last.

Is that all? Full memory of the last ten minutes flooded back. He laughed. His amoral Self had been confronted by an insurmountable barrier.

Pierre LaRoque was in a room at the end of the hallway. Amid the chaos that followed his seizure of the camera-stunner only Jacob had been able to stay on a man's trail, and he'd selfishly kept the stalk to himself.

He had played LaRoque like a trout, letting him think he'd eluded all pursuit. Once he even diverted a posse of base crewmen when they were getting too close. Now LaRoque was putting on a spacesuit in a tool closet twenty meters from an outer airlock. He'd been in there five minutes and it would take at least another ten for him to finish. That was the insurmountable barrier. Mr. Hyde couldn't wait. He was only a collection of drives, not a person, and Jacob had all of the patience. He'd planned it that way.

Jacob snorted his disgust but not without a twinge. Not too long ago that drive had been a daily part of him. He could understand the pain that waiting caused the small artificial personality that demanded instant gratification.

Minutes passed. He watched the door silently. Even in his full awareness he began to get impatient. It took a serious effort of will to keep his hand off the door latch.

The latch started to turn. Jacob stepped back with his hands at his sides.

The glassy bubble of a spacesuit helmet poked through the opening as the door swung outward. LaRoque looked to the left and then to the right. His teeth made a hissing shape when he saw Jacob. The door swung wide and the man came forward with a bar of plastic bracing material in his hand.

Jacob held up a hand. "Stop, LaRoque! I want to talk to you. You can't get away anyway."

"I don't want to hurt you, Demwa. Run!" LaRoque's voice twanged nervously from a speaker on his chest He flexed the plastic cudgel menacingly.

Jacob shook his head. "Sorry. I jimmied the airlock down the hall before waiting here. You'll find it a long walk in a spacesuit to the next one."

LaRoque's face twisted. "Why?! I did nothing! Particularly to you!"

"We'll see about that. Meanwhile, let's talk. There isn't much time."

"I'll talk!" LaRoque screamed. "I'll talk with this!" He came forward with the bar, swinging.

Jacob dropped into a deflection stance and tried to raise both hands to seize LaRoque's wrist. But he'd forgotten about the numb left shoulder. His left hand just fluttered weakly, halfway to its assigned position. The right shot out to block and got a piece of the bar coming around instead. Desperately, he fell forward and tucked his head in as the club whistled inches above.

The roll, at least, was perfect. The lesser gravity helped as he came up and around effortlessly in a crouch. But his right hand was numb now, as he automatically shut off the pain from an ugly bruise. In his suit LaRoque swiveled more lightly than Jacob expected. What was it that Kepler said about LaRoque having been an astronaut? No time. Here he comes again.

The bar came down in a vicious overhead cut. LaRoque held it in a two-handed kendo grip; easy to block if only Jacob had his hands. Jacob dove under the cut and buried his. head in LaRoque's midriff. He kept driving forward until together they slammed into the corridor wall. LaRoque said "Oof!" and dropped the bar.

Jacob kicked it away and jumped back.

"Stop this, LaRoque!" He gulped for breath. "I just want to talk to you. . . . Nobody has enough evidence to convict you of anything, so why run? There's no place to run to anyway!"

LaRoque shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry, Demwa." The affected accent was completely gone. He lunged forward, arms outstretched.

Jacob hopped backward until the distance was right, counting-slowly. At the count of five his eyelids fell and locked into slits. For an instant Jacob Demwa was whole. He dropped back and traced a geodesic in his mind from the toe of his shoe to his opponent's chin. The toe followed the arc In a snap that seemed to expand to minutes. The impact felt feather soft.

LaRoque rose into the air. In his plentitude, Jacob Demwa watched the space-suited figure fly backward in slow motion. He empathized, and it was he, it seemed, who went horizontal in midair and then drifted down in shame and hurt until the hard floor slammed into his back through the utility pack.

- Then the trance ended and he was loosening LaRoque's helmet. . . pulling it off and helping him to sit up against the wall. LaRoque was crying softly.

Jacob noticed a package attached to LaRoque's waist. He cut the attachment and started to unwrap it, pushing LaRoque's hands aside when he resisted. •

"So," Jacob pursed his lips. "You didn't try to use the stunner on me because the camera was too valuable. Why, I wonder? I might find out if we play this thing back.

"Come on, LaRoque," he rose and pulled the man to his feet. "We're going to stop where there's a readout machine. That is unless you have something to say first?"

LaRoque shook his head. He followed meekly with Jacob's hand on his arm.

At the main corridor, as Jacob was about to turn to the photo lab, a posse led by Dwayne Kepler found them. Even in the reduced gravity the scientist leaned heavily on the arm of a med-aid.

"Aha! You caught him! Wonderful! This proves everything I said! The man was fleeing a righteous punishment! He's a murderer!"

"We'll see about that," Jacob said. "The only thing this adventure proves is that he got scared. Even a Citizen can be violent when he panics. The thing I'd like to know is where he thought he was going. There's nothing out there but blasted rock! Maybe you should have some men go out and search the area around the base to be sure." Kepler laughed.

"I don't think he was going anywhere. Probationers never do know where they're going. They act on basic instinct. He simply wanted to get out of an enclosed place, like any hunted animal."

LaRoque's face remained blank. But Jacob felt his arm tense when a surface search was mentioned, then relax when Kepler shrugged the idea aside.

"Then you're giving up the idea of an adult-murder," Jacob said to Kepler as they turned toward the elevators. Kepler walked slowly.

"On what motive? Poor Jeff never harmed a fly! A decent, god-fearing chimpanzee! Besides, there hasn't been a murder by a Citizen in the System for ten years! They're about as common as gold meteors!"

Jacob had his doubts about that. The statistics were more a comment on police methods than anything else. But he remained silent.

By the elevators Kepler spoke briefly into a wall communicator. Several more men arrived almost immediately and took LaRoque from Jacob.

"Did you find the camera, by the way?" Kepler asked.

Jacob dissembled briefly. For a moment he considered hiding it and then pretending to discover it later.

"Ma camera a votre oncle!" LaRoque cried. He thrust out a hand and reached for Jacob's back pocket. The crewmen pulled him back. Another came forward and held out his hand. Jacob reluctantly handed over the camera.

"What did he say?" Kepler asked. "What language was that?"

Jacob shrugged. An elevator came and more people spilled out, including Martine and deSilva.

"It was just a curse," he said. "I don't think he approves of your ancestry."

Kepler laughed out loud.

PART V

Life is an extension of the

physical world. Biological systems

have unique properties, but they

nevertheless must obey the constraints

imposed by the physical and chemical

properties of the environment and

of the organisms themselves ...

evolution solutions to biological

problems are . . . influenced by the

physico-chemical environment.

Robert E. Ricklefs

Ecology Chiron Press

14.

THE DEEPEST OCEAN

Project Icarus it was called, the fourth space program of that name and the first for which it was appropriate. Long before Jacob's parents were born—before the Overturn and the Covenant, before the Power Satellite League, before even the full flower of the old Bureaucracy—old grandfather NASA decided that it would be interesting to drop expendable probes into the Sun to see what happened.

They discovered that the probes did a quaint thing when they got close. They burned up.

In America's "Indian Summer" nothing was thought impossible. Americans were building cities in space—a more durable probe couldn't be much of a challenge!

Shells were made, with materials that could take unheard of stress and whose surfaces reflected almost anything. Magnetic fields guided the diffuse but tremendously hot plasmas of corona and chromosphere around and away from those hulls. Powerful communications lasers pierced the solar atmosphere with two-way streams of commands and data.

Still, the robot ships burned. However good the mirrors and insulation, however evenly the superconductors distributed heat, the laws of thermodynamics still held. Heat will pass from a higher temperature to a zone where the temperature is lower, sooner or later.

The solar physicists might have gone on resignedly burning up probes in exchange for fleeting bursts of information had Tina Merchant not offered another way. "Why don't you refrigerate?" she asked. "You have all the power you want. You can run refrigerators to push heat from one part of the probe to another."

Her colleagues answered that, with superconductors, equalizing heat throughout was no problem.

"Who said anything about equalizing?" the Belle of Cambridge replied. "You should take all excess heat from the part of the ship were the instruments are and pump it into another part where the instruments aren't."

"And that part will burn up!" one colleague said. "Yes, but we can make a chain of these 'heat dumps,'" said another engineer, slightly more bright. "And then we can drop them off, one by one ..."

"No, no you don't quite understand." The triple Nobel Laureate strode to the chalkboard and drew a circle, then another circle within.

'Here!" She pointed to the inner circle. "You pump your heat into here until it is, for a short time, hotter than the ambient plasma outside of the ship. Then, before it can do harm there, you dump it out into the chromosphere."

"And how," asked a renowned physicist, "do you expect to do that?"

Tina Merchant had smiled as if she could almost see the Astronautics Prize held out to her. "Why I'm surprised at all of you!" she said. "You have onboard a communications laser with a brightness temperature of millions of degrees! Use it!"

Enter the age of the Solar Bathysphere. Floating in part by buoyancy and also by balancing atop the thrust of their refrigerator lasers, probes lingered for days, weeks, monitoring the subtle variations at the Sun, that wrought weather on the Earth.

That era came to an end with Contact. But soon a new type of Sunship was born.

Jacob thought about Tina Merchant He wondered if the great lady would have been proud, or merely bemused, to stand on the deck of a Sunship and cruise calmly through the worst tempests of this irascible star. She might have said "Of course I" But how could she have known that an alien science would have to be added to her own for men to ride those storms?

To Jacob the mixture didn't inspire confidence.

He knew, of course that a couple of dozen successful descents had been made in this ship. There was no reason to think that this trip would be dangerous.

Except that another ship, the scaled-down replica of this one, had mysteriously failed just three days before.

Jeff's ship was probably now a drifting cloud of dissolving cermet fragments and ionized gases, scattered through millions of cubic miles in the solar maelstrom. Jacob tried to imagine the storms of the chromosphere the way the chimp scientist saw them in the last instant of his life, unprotected by the space-time fields.

He closed his eyes and rubbed them gently. He had been staring at the Sun, blinking too seldom.

From his point of view, on one of the observation couches flush with the deck, he could see almost an entire hemisphere of the Sun. Half of the sky was filled by a feathery, slowly shifting ball of soft reds and blacks and whites. In hydrogen light, everything glowed in shades of crimson; the faint, delicate arch of a prominence, standing out against space at the star's rim; the dark, twisting bands of filaments; and the sunken, blackish sunspots with their umbral depths and penumbral flows.

The topography of the Sun had almost infinite variety and texture. From flickers too fast to follow with the eye, to slow majestic turnings, all he could see was in motion.

Although the major features changed little from one hour to the next, Jacob could now make out countless lesser movements. The quickest were the pulsations of forests of tall slender "spicules" around the edges of great mottled cells. The pulses took place within seconds. Each spicule, he knew, covered thousands of square miles.

Jacob had spent time at the telescope on the Flip-side of the Sunship, watching the flickering spikes of superheated plasma jetting up out of the photosphere like quick waving fountains, flinging free of the Sun's gravity great rolling waves of sound and matter that became the corona and the solar wind.

Within the spicule fences, the huge granulation cells pulsed in complicated rhythm as heat from below finished its million-year journey of convection to escape suddenly as light.

These, in turn, bunched together in gigantic cells, whose oscillations were the basic modes of the almost perfectly spherical Sun—the ringing of a stellar bell.

Above all this, like a broad deep sea rolling over the ocean floor, flowed the chromosphere.

The analogy could be overstated, but one could think of the turbulent areas above the spicules as coral reefs, and of the rows of stately, feathery filaments,, tracing everywhere the paths of magnetic fields, as beds of kelp, gently swaying with the tide. No matter that each pink arch was many times the size of Earth!

Once more Jacob tore his eyes away from the boiling sphere. I'm going to be useless for anything if I keep staring like this, he thought. I wonder how the others resist it?

The entire observation floor was visible from his position, except for a small section on the other side of the forty-foot dome at the Center.

An opening grew in the side of the central dome and light spilled out into the deck. Silhouetted, a man emerged, followed by a tall woman. Jacob didn't have to wait for his eyes to adapt to know the outline of Commandant deSilva.

Helene smiled as she walked over and sat cross-legged next to his couch.

"Good morning, Mr. Demwa. I hope you had a good night's sleep. It'll be a busy day."

Jacob laughed. "That's three times in one breath you've talked as if there was anything called night here. You don't have to keep up the fiction, like providing this sunrise here." He nodded to where the Sun covered half of the sky.

"Rotation of the ship to make eight hours of night allows groundlubbers a chance to sleep," she said.

"You needn't have worried," Jacob said. "I can catch Zee's anytime. It's my most valuable talent?'

Helena's smile widened. "It was no Inconvenience. But, now that you mention it, it's always been a tradition of Helionauts to rotate the ship once before final descent and call it night."

"You have traditions already? After only two years?"

"Oh this tradition is much older than that! It dates back to when nobody could imagine any other way to visit the Sun but..." She paused.

Jacob groaned out loud.

"But to go at night, when it isn't so hot!"

"You figured it out!"

"Filimentary, my dear Watson."

It was her turn to groan. "Actually, we are building up some feeling of tradition among those who have gone down to Helios. We make up the Fire-Eaters Club. You'll be initiated back on Mercury. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what the initiation consists of ... but I hope you can swim!"

"I don't see any place to hide, Commandant. I'll be proud to be a Fire-Eater."

"Good! And don't forget, you still owe me that story about how you saved the Finnila Needle. I never did tell you how glad I was to see that old monstrosity when the Calypso returned, and I want to hear about it from the man who preserved it."

Jacob stared past the Sunship Commandant. For a moment he thought he could hear a wind whistling, and someone calling ... a voice crying out indecipherable words as somebody fell.... He shook himself.

"Oh, I'll save it for you. It's much too personal to talk about in one of those story-swaps. There was someone else involved in saving the needles, someone you might like to hear about."

There was something in Helene deSilva's expression, something compassionate, that implied she already knew about what had happened to him at Ecuador, and would let him tell about it in his own good time.

"I'm looking forward to it. And I've finally thought of one for you. It's about the 'song-birds' of Omnivarium. It seems the planet is so silent that the human settlers have to be very careful lest the birds start mimicking any noise they make. This has an interesting effect on the settler's lovemaking behavior, particularly among the women, depending on whether they want to advertise their partner's 'abilities' in the age-old fashion or remain, discreet!

"But I must go back to my duties now. And I certainly don't want to give away the whole story. I'll let you know when we reach the first turbulence."

Jacob rose to his feet with her and watched as she walked toward the command station. Partway into the solar chromosphere was probably an odd place to be enthralled by the way a fem walked, but until she went out of sight he felt no inclination to turn his eyes away. He admired the limberness that members of the interstellar corps inculcated into their extremities. Hell, she was probably doing it on purpose. Where It didn't interfere with her job, Helene deSilva obviously pursued libido as a hobby.

There was something strange, though, In her behavior towards him. She appeared to trust him more than would normally be warranted by the small contributions he'd made on Mercury and their few friendly conversations. Perhaps she was after something. If so he couldn't figure out what.

On the other hand, maybe people were more naturally ultimate when they left Earth for the long Jump on Calypso. Someone brought up on an O'Niel Colony, in a period of introspection caused by political stultification, might be more willing to trust her instincts than a child of the highly individualistic Confederacy.

He wondered what Fagin had told her about him.

Jacob went to the central dome, the outside wall of which contained a little boxlike head.

When he came out, Jacob felt much more awake. On the other side of the dome, by the food and beverage machines, he found Dr. Martine standing with the two bipedal aliens. She smiled at him, and Culla's eyes brightened with friendliness. Even Bubbacub grunted a greeting through his Vodor.

He pressed buttons for orange juice and an omelette.

"You know, Jacob, you turned in too early last night. Pil Bubbacub was telling us some more incredible stories after you went to bed. They were astounding, really!"

Jacob bowed slightly at Bubbacub.

"I apologize, Pil Bubbacub. I was very tired, otherwise I would have been thrilled to hear more about the great Galactics, particularly of the glorious Pila. I'm sure the stories are inexhaustible."

Martine stiffened next to him, but Bubbacub showed his pleasure by preening. Jacob knew it would be dangerous to insult the little alien. But by now he'd guessed the Ambassador wouldn't know any accusation of hubris as an insult. Jacob couldn't resist the harmless dig.

Martine insisted that he come over to eat with them, where the couches had already been raised for dining. Two of deSilva's four crewmen ate nearby.

"Has anyone seen Fagin?" Jacob asked.

Dr. Martine shook her head. "No, I'm afraid he's been on Flip-side for over twelve hours. I don't know why he doesn't join us here."

It wasn't like Fagin to be reticent When Jacob had gone to the instrument hemisphere to use the telescope, and found the Kanten there, Fagin had hardly said a word. Now the Commandant had put the other side of the ship off limits to everyone except the E.T., who occupied it alone.

If I don't hear from Fagin by lunchtime, I'm going to demand an explanation, Jacob thought.

Nearby, Martine and Bubbacub talked. Occasionally Culla said a word or two, always with the most unctuous respect. The Pring seemed always to have a liquitube between his giant lips. He sipped slowly, steadily consuming the contents of several tubes while Jacob ate his meal.

Bubbacub launched into a story about an Ancestral of his, a member of the Soro race who had, some million or so years ago, taken part in one of the few peaceful contacts between the loose civilization of oxygen breathers and the mysterious parallel culture of hydrogen-breathing races which coexisted in the galaxy.

For aeons there had been little or no understanding between hydrogen and oxygen. Whenever conflict arose between the two a planet died. Sometimes more. It was fortunate that they had almost nothing in common, so conflicts were rare".

The story was long and involved, but Jacob admitted to himself that Bubbacub was a master storyteller. Bubbacub could be charming and witty, as long as he controlled the center of attention.

Jacob allowed his imagination to drift along as the Pil vividly described those things which only a handful of men had ever even sampled: the infinite strangeness and beauty of the stars, and the variety of things which dwelt on a multitude of planets. He began to envy Helene deSilva.

Bubbacub felt the cause of the Library intensely. It was the vehicle of knowledge and of a tradition which unified all of those who took in oxygen as breath. It provided continuity and more, for without the Library, there would be no bridges between species. Wars would not be fought with restraint but to extinction. Planets would be ruined by over-use.

The Library, and the other loosely-knit Institutes, helped to prevent genocide among its members.

Bubbacub's story reached its climax and he allowed his awed audience a few moments of silence. Finally, he good-naturedly asked Jacob if he would care to honor them with a story of his own.

Jacob was taken aback. By human standards, perhaps, he had led an interesting life, but certainly not remarkable! What could he talk about from history? Apparently the rules were that it had to either be a personal experience, or an adventure of an Ancestor or Ancestral.

Perspiring in his chair, Jacob considered telling a story about some historical figure; perhaps Marco Polo or Mark Twain. But Martine would probably not be interested.

Then there was the part his grandfather Alvarez had played in the Overturn. But that story was rather heavily political and Bubbacub would think its moral downright subversive. His best story had to do with his own adventure at the Vanilla Needle, but that was too personal, too filled with painful memories to share here and now. Besides he'd promised it to Helene deSilva.

It was too bad LaRoque wasn't here. The feisty little man would probably have been able to talk until the fires below burned out.

An impish thought struck Jacob. There was a character out of history, who was» a direct Ancestor of his and whose story might be sufficiently relevant. The amusing part was that the story could be interpreted on two levels. He wondered how obvious he could get without certain listeners catching on.

"Well, as a matter of fact," he began slowly. "There's a male from the history of Earth who I would like to talk about. He is of interest because he was involved in a contact between a 'primitive' culture and technology and another that could overpower it in almost every respect. Naturally, you're all familiar with the premise. Since Contact, it's been almost all historians talk about.

"The fate of the Amerind Is this era's morality play. Old twentieth-century movies glorifying the 'Noble Red Man' are shown today strictly for laughs. As Millie reminded us, back on Mercury, and as everyone back home knows, the Red Man did just about the poorest job of any of the impacted cultures at adapting to the arrival of Europeans. His vaunted pride kept him from studying the white man's powerful ways until it was too late, exactly opposite to the successful "co-opting" made by Japan in the late nineteenth century ... the example that the 'Adapt and Survive' faction keeps pointing out to all who will listen these days."

He had them. The humans were watching him silently. Culla's eyes were bright. Even Bubbacub, usually inattentive, kept his beady little eyes on Jacob. Martine had winced when he mentioned the A & S faction, though. A datum.

If LaRoque were here, he wouldn't care for what I'm saving, Jacob thought. But LaRoque's distress would be nothing next to that of his Alverez kin, should they ever hear him talk like this!

"Of course, the failure of the Amerinds to adapt wasn't entirely their fault," Jacob continued. "Many scholars think that western hemisphere cultures were in a periodic slump that happened, unfortunately, to coincide with the arrival of Europeans. Indeed, the poor Mayans had just finished a civil war in which they'd all moved out to the country and left their cities, and princes and priests, to rot. When Columbus arrived the temples were mostly deserted. Of course, the population had doubled and wealth and trade had quadrupled over the 'Golden Age of the Maya, but those are hardly valid measures of cultures." Careful, boy. Don't go too heavy on the irony. Jacob noticed that one of the crewmen, a fellow he'd met named Dubrowsky, had backed away from the others. Only Jacob could see the sardonic grin on the man's face. Everyone else appeared to be listening with unsuspicious interest, though it was hard to tell with Culla and Bubbacub.

"Now this ancestor of mine was an Amerind. His name was Se-quo-yi, and he was a member of the Cherokee nation.

"At the time, the Cherokee lived mostly in the state of Georgia. Since that was the East Coast of America, they had even less time than the other Amerinds to prepare to deal with the white man. Still, they tried, after their own fashion. Their attempt was nowhere near as grand or complete as the Japanese, but they tried.

"They were quick to pick up on the technology of their new neighbors. Log cabins replaced lodge houses and iron tools and blacksmithing became a part of Cherokee life. They learned about gunpowder early, as well as European methods of fanning. Though many didn't like the idea, the tribe even became a slaveholding enterprise at one point.

"That was after they'd been whipped in two wars. They'd made the mistake of supporting the French in 1765, and then backed the Crown during the first American Revolution. Even so, they had a fair-sized little republic in the first part of the nineteenth century, partly because several young Cherokee had picked up enough of the white man's knowledge to become lawyers. Along with their Iroquois speaking cousins to the north, they did a fair job of playing the treaty game.

"For a while.

"Enter my ancestor. Se-quo-yi was a man who didn't like either of the choices offered his people, either staying noble savages and getting wiped out, or co-opting the settlers' ways completely and disappearing as a people. In particular, he saw the power of the written word but thought the Indian would forever be at a disadvantage if he had to learn English to become literate."

Jacob wondered if anyone would make the connection, comparing the situation that faced Se-quo-yi and the Cherokee with humanity's present predicament, vis-a-vis the Library.

Judging by the look on Martine's face, at least one person was surprised to hear such a long historical tale from the normally quiet Jacob Demwa. There was no way she could, or ever would, know about the long lessons, after school, in history and oratory that he and the other Alvarez children had endured. Though he had turned away from politics, a family black sheep, he still had some of the skills.

"Well, Se-quo-yi solved his problem to his own satisfaction by inventing a written form of the Cherokee language. It was a Herculean task, accomplished at cost of episodes of torture and exile, for many in his own tribe resisted his efforts. But when he finished all of the world of literature and technology was available, not just to the intellectual who could study English for years, but to the Cherokee of average intelligence, as well.

"Soon even the assimilationists accepted the work of Se-quo-yi's genius. His victory set the tone for all succeeding generations of Cherokee. These people, the only Amerinds whose principle hero was an intellectual, and not a warrior, chose to be selective.

"And that was their big mistake. If they'd let the local missionaries change them over into imitation settlers they would have been able, probably, to merge into the yeoman class and be looked upon by the Europeans as a slightly lower type of white man.

"Instead, they thought they could become modern Indians, retaining the essential elements of their old culture ... obviously a contradiction in terms.

"Still, there are some scholars who think they might have made it. Things were going well until a group of white men discovered gold on Cherokee land. That got the settlers fairly excited. They got a bill through the Georgia legislature to declare the land up for grabs.

"Then the Cherokee did a strange thing, something that wasn't adequately duplicated for about a hundred years after. That Indian nation took the Georgia state legislature to court over the land seizure! They had some help from some sympathetic white men and managed to bring the case before the United States Supreme Court.

"The Court ruled that the seizure was illegal. The Cherokee could keep their land.

"But here is where the incompleteness of their adjustment let them down. Because they'd made no major attempt to fit themselves into the basic structure of settler society, the Cherokee had no political power to back up the tightness of their cause. They trusted, and cleverly used, the high and honorable laws of the new nation, but didn't realize that public opinion has every bit as much force as law.

"To most of their white neighbors they were just another tribe of Indians. When Andy Jackson told the Court to go to hell, and sent the Army in to evict the Cherokee anyway, there was nowhere for them to turn.

"So Se-quo-yi's people had to pack a few belongings and march the tragic Trail of Tears to a new 'Indian Territory,' in western lands none of them had ever seen.

"The story of the Trail of Tears was an epic of human courage and endurance. The sufferings of the Cherokee on that long march were deep and sad. Some very moving literature came out of it, as well as a tradition of strength in privation that has affected the spirit of that people ever since, even down to today.

"That eviction wasn't the last trauma to fall on the Cherokee.

"When the United States had a Civil War, the Cherokee did as well. Brother killed brother when the Confederate Indian Volunteers met the Union Indian Brigade. They fought as passionately as did the white troops, and usually with more discipline. And in the process their new homes were ravaged.

"Later there were troubles with bandit gangs, diseases, and more land seizures. In their stoicism they came to be known by some as the 'Amerind Jews.' While some other tribes dissolved in despair and apathy in the face of the crimes committed against them, the Cherokee maintained their tradition of self reliance.

"Se-quo-yi was remembered. Perhaps in symbolism of the pride of the Cherokee, his name was given to a certain type of tree, one that grows in the misty forests of California. The tallest tree in the world.

"But all of this leads us away from the folly of the Cherokee. For while their pride helped them survive the depredations of the nineteenth century and the neglect of the twentieth, it held them back from participating in the Indian Consolation of the twenty-first. They refused the 'cultural reparations' offered by the American governments just before the beginning of the Bureaucracy; riches heaped on -the remnants of the Indian Nations to salve the delicate consciences of the enlightened, educated public in that era that is today, ironically, referred to as America's 'Indian Summer.'

"They refused to set up Cultural Centers to perform ancient dances and rituals. While other Amerind revivalists resurrected pre-Columbian crafts to 'regain contact with their heritage,' the Cherokee asked why -they should dig up 'Model TV when they could be building their own specially-flavored version of twenty-first-century American culture.

"Along with the Mohawks and scattered groups from other tribes, they traded their 'Consolation' and half of their tribal wealth to buy into the Power Satellite League. The pride of their youth went up to help build the cities in space, as their grandfathers had helped build the great cities of America. The Cherokee gave away a chance to be rich in exchange for a share of the sky.

"And once again they paid terribly for their pride. When the Bureaucracy began its suppression, the League rebelled. Those bright young males and fems, the treasure of their nation, died by the thousands alongside their space-brothers, descendants of Andy Jackson and of Andy Jackson's slaves. The League cities they built were decimated. The survivors were allowed to remain in space only because someone had to be there to show the. Bureaucracy's carefully selected replacements how to live.

"On Earth the Cherokee suffered, too. Many took part in the Constitutionalist Revolt. Alone of the Indian nations, they were punished by the victors as a group, along with the VietAms, and the Minnesotans. The Second Trail of Tears was as sad as the first. This time, though, they had company.

"Of course, the first ruthless generation of Bureaucracy leaders passed, and the era of the true bureaucrats arrived. The Hegemony cared more about productivity than vengeance. The League rebuilt, under supervision, and a rich new culture developed in the O'Niel Colonies, influenced by the survivors of 'the original builders.

"On Earth, the Cherokee still meet, long after many tribes have been absorbed into cosmopolitan culture or into quaintness. They still haven't learned their lesson. I hear that their latest crackpot scheme is a joint project with the VietAms and Israel-APU to try to terra-form Venus. Ridiculous, of course.

"But all of that is beside the point. If my Ancestor, Se-quo-yi, and-his kin, had adapted completely to the ways of the white man they could have .won a small place in his culture and been absorbed in peace, without suffering. If they had resisted with indiscriminate stubbornness, along with many of their Amerind neighbors, they would have suffered still, but finally been given a place, through the 'kindness' of a later generation of white man.

"Instead, they tried to find a synthesis between those obvious good and powerful aspects of western civilization, and their own heritage. They experimented and were choosy. They picked and fussed over the meal for six hundred years and suffered, because of it. more than any other tribe.

"The moral of this story I have told, should be obvious. We humans are faced with a choice similar to that faced by the Amerinds, whether to be picky or to accept wholeheartedly all of the billion-year-old culture offered us through the Library. Let anyone who urges choosiness remember the story of the Cherokee. Their trail has been long, and it isn't over yet."

There was a long silence after Jacob finished. Bubbacub still watched him with little black eyes. Culla stared fixedly. Dr. Martine looked down at the deck, her eyebrows knotted in thought.

The crewman, Dubrowsky, stood well back. One arm was crossed in front of him. His other hand covered his mouth. Crinkles around his eyes; did they betray silent laughter?

Must be a League-man. Space is infested with them. I hope he keeps his mouth shut about this. I took enough of a chance as it is.

His throat felt parched. He took a long drink from the liquitube of orange juice he had saved from breakfast.

Bubbacub finally placed both little hands behind his neck and sat up. He looked at Jacob for a moment.

"Good sto-ry," he snapped, finally. "I will ask you to rec-ord it for me, when we get back. It has good les-son for Earth folk.

"There are some ques-tions I would ask, though. Now or la-ter. Some things I do not un-der-stand."

"As you wish, Pil-Bubbacub," Jacob bowed, trying to hide his grin. Now to change the subject quick, before Bubbacub could get started asking about pesky details! But how?

"I too, enjoyed my friend Jacob's story," a whistling voice fluted from behind them, "I approached as silently as I could, when I came into range to hear it. I am pleased that my presence did not disturb the telling."

Jacob shot to his feet with relief.

"Fagin!" Everyone rose as the Kanten slithered toward them. In the ruby light, he looked jet black. His movements were slow.

"I wish to offer apologies! My absence was unavoidable. The Commandant graciously assented to allow more radiation through the screens so that I could take nourishment. But, understandably, it was necessary that she do so only on the unoccupied reverse side of the ship."

"That's true," Martine laughed. "We wouldn't want any sunburn here!"

"Quite so. And yet it was lonely there, I am glad to have company again."

The bipeds sat down and Fagin settled himself onto the deck. Jacob seized the opportunity to get out of his fix.

"Fagin, we've been exchanging some stories here, waiting for the surfing to start. Maybe you can tell us one about the Institute of Progress?"

The Kanten rustled its foliage. There was a pause. "Alas, Friend-Jacob. Unlike that of the Library, the Institute of Progress is not an important society. The very name is poorly translated into English. There are no words in your language to represent it properly.

"Our small order was founded to fulfill one of the least of the Injunctions that the Progenitors placed upon the oldest of races when they left the galaxy so long ago. Crudely stated, it imposed upon us the duty to respect 'Newness.'

"It may be hard for a species such as your own, orphans so to speak, who have until recently never felt the bittersweet bonds of kinship and patron-client obligation, to understand the inherent conservatism of our Galactic culture. This conservatism is not bad. For admidst so much diversity a belief in the Tradition and in a common heritage is a good influence. Young races heed the words of those older, who have learned wisdom and patience with years.

"You might say, to borrow an English expression, that we hold a deep regard for our roots."

Only Jacob noticed that Fagin shifted his weight slightly at that point. The Kanten was folding and unfolding the short knotty tentacles that served as his feet. Jacob tried not to choke as a swallow of orange juice went down wrong.

"But there remains a need to face the future, as well," Fagin continued. "And in their wisdom, the Progenitors warned the Oldest not to scorn that which is new under the Sun."

Fagin was silhouetted against the giant red orb, their destination. Jacob shook his head helplessly.

"So when word got out that somebody'd found a bunch of savages sucking at a wolfs teat, you came running, right?"

More rustling foliage. "Very graphic, Friend-Jacob. But your surmise is essentially correct. The Library has the important task of teaching the races of Earth what they need to know to survive. My Institute has the humbler mission of appreciating your Newness."

Dr. Martine spoke.

"Kant Fagin, to your knowledge, has this ever happened before? I mean, has there ever been a case of a species which has no memory of Ancestral Upbringing, bursting into the galaxy on their own like we did?"

"Yes, respected Doctor Martine. It has happened a number of times. Space is large beyond all imagining. The periodic migrations of oxygen and hydrogen civilizations cover great distance, and rarely is even a settled area ever full explored. Often, in these great movements, a tiny fragment of a race, barely raised from bestiality, has been abandoned by its patrons to find its way alone. Such abandonments are usually avenged by civilized peoples . . ." The Kanten hesitated. Suddenly Jacob realized why with a shock as Fagin hurried on.

"But since it is usually at a time of migration that these rare cases occur, there is an added problem. The wolfling race may develop a crude spacedrive from the dregs of its patron's technology, but by the time it enters interstellar space, its part of the galaxy might be under Interdict. Unknowingly it might fall prey to hydrogen breathers whose turn it may be to occupy that cluster or spiral arm.

"Nevertheless, such species are found occasionally. Usually the orphans retain vivid memories of their patrons. In some cases, myth and legend have taken the place of fact. But the Library is almost always able to trace the truth, for that is where our truths are stored."

Fagin lowered several branches in Bubbacub's direction. The Pil acknowledged with a friendly bow.

"That is why," Fagin went on, "we await with great expectation the discovery of the reason why there is no mention of your Earth in that great archive. There is no listing, no record of previous occupation, in spite of five full migrations through this region since the Progenitors departed."

Bubbacub froze in his bow. The small black eyes snapped up to bear on the Kanten with narrowly focused ferocity, but Fagin appeared not to notice as he continued.

"To my knowledge, mankind is the first case in which there exists the intriguing possibility of evolved intelligence. As I am sure" you know, this idea violates several well-established principles of our biological science. Yet some of your anthropologists' arguments possess startling self-consistency."

"It is quaint idea," Bubbacub sniffed. "Like per-pet-ual motion, these boast-ings by those you call 'Skins.' The theories of 'natural' growth of full sent-ience, are great source of good-natured jokes, human-Jacob-Dem-wa. But soon the Lib-rar-y give your troub-led race what it needs; the com-fort of knowing where you came from!"

The low hum of the ship's engines grew louder, and for a second Jacob felt a slight disorientation.

"Attention everybody," the amplified voice of Commandant deSilva carried throughout the ship. "We've just crossed over the first reef. From now on there will be momentary shocks like that one. I'll inform you when we near our target area. That is all."

The Sun's horizon was now nearly flat. On all sides of the ship, a sparse red and black tangle of curling shapes stretched away to infinity. More and more of the highest filaments were coming even with the vessel to become prominences against what remained of the blackness of space, and then to disappear into the reddish haze that grew over their heads.

The group moved, by mutual consent, to the edge of the deck where they could look straight into the lower chromosphere. They were quiet, for a while, watching as the deck quivered from time to time.

"Dr. Martine," Jacob said. "Are you and Pil Bubbacub ready with your experiments?"

She pointed to a pair of stout space-trunks on the deck next to Bubbacub's station and her own.

"We have all we need right here. I'm bringing along some psi equipment I used on earlier dives, but mostly I'm going to help Pil Bubbacub in any way I can. My brain wave amplifiers and Q-devices are like knucklebones and tea leaves next to what he's got in his case. But I'll try to be of assistance."

"Your help be take-en with glad-ness," Bubbacub said. But when Jacob asked to see the Pil's psi-testing apparatus he held up his four-fingered hand. "Later, when we are ready."

The old itchiness returned to Jacob's hands. What does Bubbacub have in those trunks? The Branch Library had next to nothing on psi. Some phenomenology, but very little on methodology.

What does a billion-year-old galactic culture know, he thought, about the deep fundamental levels that all sentient species seem to have in common? Apparently they don't know everything, for the Galactics still operate on this plane of reality. And I know for a fact that at least some of them don't have any more telepathy than I do.

There were rumors that older species periodically faded away from the galaxy; sometimes from natural attrition of war or apathy, but also occasionally by simply "stepping off" . . . disappearing into interests and behavior that have no meaning to their clients or neighbors.

Why does our Branch Library have nothing on these events, or even on the practical aspects of psi?

Jacob frowned and locked his two hands together. No, he decided. I'm going to leave Bubbacub's trunk alone!

Helene deSilva's voice came on again over the intercom.

"We will be approaching the target area in thirty minutes. Those who wish may now approach the Pilot Board to get a good view of our destination."

The rest of the Sun seemed to dim slightly as their eyes adapted to the added brightness of the area. The faculae were bright pinpoints, flashing on and off far below in sudden brilliance. At some indeterminable distance, a great sunspot group stretched away. The nearest spot looked like an open pit mine, a sunken recess in the grainy "surface" of the photosphere. The dark Umbra was very still, but the penumbral regions around the sunspot's rim rippled incessantly outward, like wavelets spreading from a pebble thrown into a lake. The border was vague, like a plucked piano string, vibrating.

Above and all around, the huge shape of a filament tangle loomed. It had to be one of the biggest things that Jacob had ever seen. Following the lines of magnetic fields that merged, twisted, and looped around one another, giant clouds swirled and flowed. A strand emerged from nothingness, rose, twisted around another, and then disappeared into "thin air."

All around them now was a swirl of smaller shapes; almost invisible, but excluding the comforting black of space in an overall pink haze.

Jacob wondered what a literary man would make of this scene. For all of his egregious—perhaps murderous faults—LaRoque had a reputation built on a beautiful facility with words. Jacob had read several of his articles and enjoyed the flowing prose, while perhaps laughing at the man's conclusions. Here was a scene that demanded a poet, whatever his politics. He thought it a pity that LaRoque wasn't here . . . for more than one reason.

"Our instruments have picked up a source of anomalous polarized light. That's where we start our search."

Culla stepped up to the lip of the deck and stared intently at a position pointed out to him by a crewman.

Jacob asked the Commandant what he was doing.

"Culla can detect color far more accurately than we," deSilva said. "He can see differences in wave length down to about an angstrom or so. Also he's somehow able to retain the phase of the light he sees. Some interference phenomenon, I suppose. But it makes him really handy at spotting the coherent light these laser beasties put out. He's almost always the first one to see them."

Culla's mashies clacked together once. He pointed with a slender band.

"It ish there," he stated. "There are many points of light. It ish a large herd, and I believe that there are sheperdsh there ash well."

DeSilva smiled, as the ship hastened its approach.

15.

OF LIFE AND DEATH . . .

In the center of the filament, the Sunship moved like a fish caught in a swift current. The current was electrical, and the tide that swept the mirrored sphere along was a magnetized plasma of incredible complexity.

Lumps and streaming shreds of ionized gas seared thither and back, twisted by the forces that their very passage created. Flows of glowing matter popped suddenly in and out of visibility, as the Doppler effect took the emission lines of the gas into and then out of coincidence with the spectral line being used for observation.

The ship swooped through the turbulent chromospheric crosswinds, tacking on the plasma forces by subtle shifts in its own magnetic shields . . . sailing with sheets made of almost corporeal mathematics. Lightning fast furling and thickening of those shields of force—allowing the tug of the conflicting eddies to be felt in one direction and not another—helped to cut down the buffeting dealt out by the storm.

Those same shields kept out most of the screaming heat, diverting the rest into tolerable forms. What got through was sucked up into a chamber to drive the Refrigerator Laser, the kidney whose filtered waste-flow was a stream of x-rays which clove aside even the plasma in its path.

Still, these were mere inventions of Earthmen. It was the science of the Galactics that made the Sun-ship graceful and safe. Gravity fields held back the amorous, crushing pull of the Sun so the ship fell or flew at will. The pounding forces of the center of the filament were absorbed or neutralized, and duration itself was altered by time-compression.

In relation to a fixed position on the Sun (if such a tiling existed), it was swept along the magnetic arch at thousands of miles per hour. But relative to the surrounding clouds, the ship seemed to poke its way slowly, pursuing a quarry seen in glimpses.

Jacob watched the chase with half an eye, and kept Culla in sight the rest of the time. The slender alien was the ship's lookout. He stood by the helmsman, eyes glowing and arm pointing into the murk.

Culla's directions were only a little better than those given by the ship's own instruments, but the instruments were difficult for Jacob to read. He appreciated having someone there to show passengers, as well as crew, the way to look.

For an hour they'd chased after specks that glowed in the distant haze. The specks were extremely faint, in the blue and green lines deSilva had ordered opened, but occasionally a burst of greenish light stabbed out from one or another, like a searchlight that suddenly took in the ship and then swept past.

Now the glimpses occurred more frequently. There were at least a hundred of the objects, all about the same size. Jacob looked at the Proximity Meter. Seven hundred kilometers.

At two hundred their shape became clear. Each of the "magnetic grazers" was a torus. At this range the colony looked like a large collection of tiny blue wedding rings. Every little ring was aligned the same way, along the filamentary arch.

"They line up along the magnetic field where it's most intense," deSilva said. "And spin on their axes to generate an electric current. Heaven knows how they get from one active region to another when the fields shift. We're still trying to figure out what keeps them together."

Toward the edge of the crowd a few toruses wobbled slowly as they spun. Processing.

Suddenly, for an instant, the ship was bathed by a sharp green glow. Then the ochre hue returned. The pilot looked up at Jacob.,

"We just passed through the laser tail of one torus. An occasional shot like that doesn't do any harm," he said. "But if we were coming up from behind and below the main herd we might have had trouble!"

A clump of dark plasma, either cooler or moving much faster than the surrounding gas, passed in front of the ship, blocking their view.

"What purpose does the laser serve?" Jacob asked.

DeSilva shrugged. "Dynamic stability? Propulsion? Possibly they use it for cooling like we do. I suppose there might even be solid matter in their makeup, if that were true.

"Whatever the purpose, it sure is powerful to punch green light through these red-tuned screens. That's the only reason we discovered them. Big as they are, they're like pollen blowing in the wind down here. We could search for a million years and never find a toroid, without the laser for a trace. They're invisible in the hydrogen alpha, so to observe them better, we opened up a couple of bands in the green and blue. Naturally we won't be opening the wavelength that laser's tuned to! The lines we choose are quiet and optically thick, so whatever you see that's green or blue comes from a beastie. It should come as a pleasant change."

"Anything would be welcome but this damned red."

The ship passed through the dark matter and suddenly they were almost among the creatures.

Jacob gulped and closed his eyes momentarily. When he looked again, he found that he couldn't swallow. On top of three days of unbelievable sights, what he saw left him helpless before a powerful tremor of emotion.

If a group of fish "is called a "school" for its discipline, and several lions comprise a "pride," named for their attitude, Jacob decided that the cluster of solar-beings could only be called a "flare." So intense was its brilliance that its members seemed to shine against black space.

The nearer toroids shone with the colors of an Earth spring. Only with distance did the colors fade. Pale green shimmered .below their axes, where laser light scattered in the plasma.

Around all of them sparkled a diffuse halo of white light.

"Synchrotron radiation," a crewman said. "Those babies must really be spinning! I'm picking up a big flux at l00KeV!"

Four hundred meters across and more than 2,000 distant, the nearest toroid spun madly. Around its rim geometric shapes flew past like beads on a necklace, changing, so that deep blue diamonds became purple sinuous bands, circuiting a brilliant emerald ring, all within seconds.

The Sunship captain stood by the Pilot Board, eyes darting from indicator to gauge and alert to every detail. To glance at her was to watch a softened version of the show outside the ship, for the fluxious, iridescent colors of the nearest toroid bathed her face and her white uniform and were thereby tamed and diffused for the second half of the trip to Jacob's eye. First faintly, then more brightly as green and blue mixed with and drove out the pink, the colors sparkled each time she looked up and smiled.

Suddenly, the blueness swelled as a burst of exuberance from the toroid coincided with an intricate display of patterns, like a weaving of ganglia around the ring-beast's rim.

The performance was peerless. Arteries erupted in green and twined with veins drawn in pulsing, chaste blue. These throbbed in counterpoint, then grew like gravid vines, peeling back to release clouds of tiny triangles—sprays of two dimensional pollen that scattered in a multitude of miniscule three-point collisions around the non-Euclidian body of the torus. At once the motif became isosceles, and the doughnut-rim became a cacophote of sides and angles.

The display reached a peak of intensity, then receded. The rim patterns became less bright and the torus backed away, finding a place to spin among its fellows as the red started to return, pushing out greens and blues from the deck of the ship and from the faces of the watchers.

"That was a .greeting," Helene deSilva said finally. "There are skeptics back on Earth who still think that the magnetovores are just some form of magnetic aberration. Let them come and see for themselves, then. We are witnessing life. Clearly the Creator accepts few limits to the range of his handiwork."

She touched the pilot's shoulder lightly. His hands moved on his controls and the ship began to bank away.

Jacob agreed with Helene, though her logic was unscientific. He had no doubts .that the toroids were alive. The creature's display, whether it was a greeting or simply a territorial response to the presence of the ship, had been a sign of something vital, if not sentient.

The anachronistic reference to a supreme deity had sounded oddly fitting to the beauty of the moment.

The Commandant spoke again into Tier microphone as the flare of magnetovores fell back and the deck turned.

"Now we go hunting ghosts.

"Remember, we aren't really here to study the magnetovores but their predators. A constant watch is to be maintained by the crew for any sign of these elusive creatures. Since they have been sighted as often by accident as not, it would be appreciated if everyone helped. Please report anything extraordinary to me.

DeSilva and Culla held a conference. The alien nodded slowly, an occasional flash of white between huge gums betraying his excitement. Finally, he set off around the curve of the central dome.

DeSilva explained that she had sent Culla to the other side of the deck, flip-side, where normally only Instruments stood, to act as a lookout in case the laser beings should appear from the nadir, where the rim-mounted detectors could not reach them.

"We've had a number of zenith sightings," deSilva repeated. "And these have often been the most interesting cases, such as when we saw anthropomorphic shapes."

"And the shapes always disappeared before the ship could be turned?" Jacob asked.

"Or the beasts would turn with us to stay overhead. It was infuriating! But that gave us the first clue that psi might be involved. After all, whatever their motives, how could they know about our way of placing instruments at the rim of a disc and follow our movements so precisely, without knowing what we intended to do?"

Jacob frowned in thought. "But why not put a few cameras up here? Certainly it wouldn't be much of a chore?"

"No, not much of a chore," deSilva agreed. "But the support and dive crews didn't want to disturb the ship's original symmetry. We would have to put another conduit through the deck to the main recording computer, and Culla assured us that this would eliminate whatever small ability we might have to maneuver in a stasis-failure . . . though that ability is probably negligible anyway. Witness what happened to poor Jeff.

"Jeffrey's ship, the small one you toured on Mercury, was designed from the start to carry recorders aimed at zenith and nadir. His was the only one with this modification. We'll have to make do with the rim instruments, our eyes, and a few hand-held cameras."

"And the psi experiments," Jacob pointed out.

DeSilva nodded expressionlessly.

"Yes, we are all hoping to make friendly contact, of course."

"Excuse me, Captain."

The pilot looked up from his instruments. He held a button speaker to his ear. "Culla says there's a color difference at the upper north end of the herd. It might be a calving."

DeSilva nodded.

"Okay. Proceed along a north tangent to the field flux. Rise with the herd as you make your way around and don't get close enough to spook them."

The ship began to bank at a new angle. The Sun rose on the left until it became a wall that stretched up and ahead to infinity. A faint luminescence twisted away from them, down toward the photosphere below. The sparkling trail paralleled the alignment of the herd of toruses.

That's the path of superionization our Refrigerator Laser left when we were pointed that way," deSilva said. "It must be a couple of hundred kilometers long."

"The laser is that strong?"

"Well, we have to get rid of a lot of heat. And the whole idea is to heat up a small part of the Sun. Otherwise the refrigerator wouldn't work. Incidentally, that's another reason why we're so careful not to let the herd get ahead of or behind us."

Jacob felt momentarily awed.

"When win we be in sight of ... what was it he said? A calving?"

"Yes, a calving. We're very lucky. We've only seen this twice before. The shepherds were there both tunes. They appear to assist whenever a torus gives birth. It's a logical place to start looking for them.

"As for when we get there, that depends on how violent things are between here and there, and how much time-compression we need to get there comfortably. It could be a day. If we're lucky . . ." She glanced at the Pilot Board. "... we could be there in ten minutes."

A crewman stood nearby holding a chart, apparently waiting to see deSilva.

"I'd better go and warn Bubbacub and Dr. Martine to get ready," Jacob said.

"Yes, that would be a good idea. I'll make an announcement when I know how soon we'll arrive."

As he walked away, Jacob had a strange feeling that her eyes were still on him. It lasted until he passed around the side of the central dome.

Bubbacub and Martine took the news calmly. Jacob helped them pull their equipment boxes to a position near the Pilot Board.

Bubbacub's implements were incomprehensible, and astounding. Complex, shiny, and multifaceted, one of them took up half of the crate. Its curling spires and glassy windows hinted at mysteries.

Bubbacub laid out two other devices. One was a bulbous helmet apparently designed to fit over the head of a Pil. The other looked like a chunk off of a nickel iron meteoroid, with a glassy end.

"There is three ways to look at psi," Bubbacub said through his Vodor. He motioned with a four-fingered hand for Jacob to sit. "One is that the psi is just very fine sens-or-y power, to pick out brain waves at long range and de-cinher them. That the thing I will see ab-out with this." He pointed at the. helmet.

"And this large machine?" Jacob moved to look closer.

"That sees if time and space are be-ing twisted here by the force of a soph-ont's will. The thins is done^; some-times. It sel-dom all-owed. The word is pi-ngrli. You have no word for it. Most, in-eluding hu-mans, do not need to know of it since it is rare.

The Li-brar-y prov-ides these ka-ngrl," he stroked the side of the machine once, "to each Branch, in case out-laws try to use pi-ngrli."

"It can counteract that force?"

"Yes."

Jacob shook his head. It bothered him that there was a whole type of power to which man had no access. A deficiency in technology was one thing. It could be made up in time. But a qualitative lack made him feel vulnerable.

"The Confederacy knows about this ... ka-ka ... ?"

"Ka-ngrl. Yes. I have their leave to take it from Earth. If it is lost, it will be re-placed."

Jacob felt better then. The machine suddenly looked friendlier. "And this last item . . . ?" he began to move toward the lump of iron,

"That is a P-is." Bubbacub snatched it up and put it back in the trunk. He turned away from Jacob and began to fiddle with the brain-wave helmet.

"He's pretty sensitive about that thing," Martine said when Jacob came near. "All I could get out of him was that it's a relic from the Lethani, his race's fifth high Ancestrals. It dates from just before they 'passed over' to another plane of reality."

The Perpetual Smile broadened. "Here, would you like to see ye olde alchemist's tools?"

Jacob laughed. "Well, our friend Pil has the Philosopher's Stone. What miraculous devices have you for mixing effluvium, and exorcising highly caloric ghosts?"

"Besides the normal run-of-the-mill psi detectors, such as they are, there's not much. A brain-wave device, an inertial movement sensor that's probably useless in a time-suppression field, a tachistoscopic 3-D camera and projector..."

"May I see that?"

"Sure, it's at the far end of the trunk."

Jacob reached in and removed the heavy machine. He laid it on the deck and examined the recording and projecting heads.

"You know," he said softly. "It's just possible ..."

"What is?" Martine asked.

Jacob looked up at her. "This, plus the retinal pattern reader we used on Mercury, could make a perfect mental proclivities tester."

"You, mean one of those devices used to determine Probation status?"

"Yes. If I had known this was available back at the base, we could have tested LaRoque then and there. We wouldn't have had to maser Earth and go through layers of fallible bureaucracy for an answer that might have been tampered. We could have found out his violence index on the spot!"

Martine sat still for a moment Then she looked downward.

"I don't suppose it would have made any difference."

"But you were sure there was something wrong with the message from Earth!" Jacob said. "This could save LaRoque from two months in a brig if you were right. Hell, it's possible he would have been with us right now. We'd be less unsure about the possible danger from the Ghosts, too!"

"But his escape attempt on Mercury! You said he was violent!"

"Panicky violence does not a Probationer make. What's the matter with you anyway? I thought you were sure LaRoque was framed!"

Martine sighed. She avoided meeting his eyes.

"I'm afraid I was a little hysterical back at the base. Imagine, dreaming up a conspiracy, just to trap poor Peter!

"It's still hard to believe that he's a Probationer, and maybe some mistake was made. But I no longer think it was done purposely. After all, who would want to saddle him with the blame for that poor little chimpanzee's death?"

Jacob stared for a moment, unsure what to make of her change of attitude. "Well,... the real murderer, for one," he said softly.

Immediately he regretted it

"What are you talking about?" Martine whispered. She glanced quickly to both sides to be sure that no one was nearby. Both knew that Bubbacub, a few meters away, was deaf to whispered speech.

"I'm talking about the fact that Helene deSilva, much as she probably dislikes LaRoque, thinks it's unlikely the stunner could have damaged the stasis mechanism on Jeff's ship. She thinks the crew botched up, but . .."

"Well then Peter will be released on insufficient evidence and he'll have another book to write! We'll find out the truth about the Solarians and everybody will be happy. Once good relations are established I'm sure it won't matter much that they killed poor Jeff in a fit of pique. He'll go down as a martyr to science and all this talk of murder can be ended once and for all. It's so distasteful anyway."

Jacob was beginning to find the conversation with Martine distasteful as well. Why did she squirm so? It was impossible to follow a logical argument with her.

"Maybe you're right," he shrugged.

"Sure I'm right." She patted his hand and then turned to the brain-wave apparatus. "Why don't you go look for Fagin. I'm going to be busy here for a while and it's possible he doesn't know about the calving yet."

Jacob nodded once and got to his feet. As he crossed the gently quivering deck he wondered what strange things his suspicious other half was thinking. The blurt about a "real murderer" worried him.

He met Fagin where the photosphere filled the sky in all directions, like a great wall. In front of the treelike Kanten, the filament in which they rode spiraled down and away into red dissipation. To the left and right and far below, spicule forests wriggled like effervescent rows of elephant grass.

For a time they watched together in silence.

As a waving tendril of ionized gas drifted past the ship, Jacob was reminded for the nth time of kelp floating in the tide.

Suddenly he had an image. It made him smile. He imagined Makakai, wearing a waldo-suit of cermet and stasis, plunging and leaping among these towering fountains of swirling flame, and diving, in her shell of gravity, to play among the children of this, the greatest ocean.

Do the Sun Ghosts while away the aeons as our cetaceans do? he wondered. By singing?

Neither have machines (or any of the neurotic hurry that machines bring—including the sickness of ambition?), because neither have the means. Whales have no hands and cannot use fire. Sun Ghosts have no solid matter and too much fire

Has it been a blessing for them or a curse?

(Ask the humpback, as he moans in the stillness underwater. Probably, he won't bother to answer, but someday he may add the question to his song.)

"You're just in time. I was about to call," the Captain motioned ahead into the pink haze.

A dozen or more of the toroids spun in front of them colorfully.

This group was different. Instead of drifting passively they moved about, jostling for position around something deep in the middle of the crowd. One nearby torus, only a mile distant, moved aside and then Jacob could see the object of their attention.

The magnetovore was larger than the others. Instead of the changing, multifaceted geometric shapes, dark and light bands alternated around its circuit, and it wobbled lazily while its surface rippled. Its neighbors milled about on all sides but at a distance, as if held back by some deterrent.

DeSilva gave a command. The pilot touched a control and the ship turned, righting itself so the photosphere soon was beneath them once more. Jacob was relieved. Whatever the ship's fields told him, having the Sun on his left made him feel sideways.

The magnetovore Jacob thought of as "Big One" spun, apparently oblivious to its retinue. It moved sluggishly, with a pronounced wobble.

The white halo that bathed every other torus flickered dimly around the edges of this one, like a dying-flame. The dark and light bands pulsed with an uneven undulation.

Each pulse evoked a response in the surrounding crowd of toroids. Rim patterns sharpened starkly in bright blue diamonds and spirals as each magnetovore kept its own backbeat to Big One's slowly strengthening rhythm.

Suddenly, the nearest of the attendant toruses rushed toward the banded Big One, sending bright green flashes of light along its spinning path.

From around the gravid torus, a score of brilliant blue dots flew up toward the intruder. They were in front of: it in an instant, dancing, like shimmering drops of water on a hot skillet, next to its ponderous hulk. The bright dots began to push it back, nipping and teasing, it seemed, until it was almost below the ship.

The ship turned under the pilot's hand to present its edge to the nearest of the sparkling motes, only a kilometer away. Then, for the. first time, Jacob could clearly see the life forms that were called Sun Ghosts.

It floated like a wraith, delicately, as if the chromospheric winds were a breeze to be taken with barely a flutter, as different from the firm, spinning, dervish-like toruses as a butterfly is from a whirling top.

It looked like a jellyfish, or like a brilliantly blue bath towel flapping in the wind as it hung on a clothesline. Possibly it was more an octopus, with ephemeral appendages that flickered in and out of existence along its ragged edges. Sometimes it looked to Jacob like a patch of the surface of the sea itself, somehow skimmed up and moved here, maintained in its liquid, tidal movement by a miracle.

The ghost rippled. It moved toward the Sunship, slowly, for a minute. Then it stopped.

It's looking at us too, Jacob thought.

For a moment they regarded one another, the crew of water beings, in their ship, and the Ghost.

Then the creature turned so that its flat surface was toward the Sunship. Suddenly, a flash of brilliant multicolored light washed the deck. The screens kept the glare bearable, but the pale red of the chromosphere was banished.

Jacob put a hand out in front of his eyes and blinked in wonder. So this is what it's like, he thought somewhat irrelevantly, inside a rainbow!

As suddenly as it came, the light show disappeared. The red Sun was back, and with it the filament, the sunspot far below, and the spinning toruses.

But the Ghosts were gone. They had returned to the giant magnetovore and once more danced as almost unseen dots about its rim.

"It . . . it blasted us with its laser!" the pilot said. "They never did that before!"

"One never came that close before in its normal shape, either," Helene deSilva said. "But I'm not sure what either action is supposed to mean." ;

"Do you think it meant to harm us?" Dr. Martine spoke hesitantly. "Maybe that's-how they started with Jeffrey!"

"I don't know. Maybe it was a warning..."

"Or maybe it just wanted to get back to work," Jacob said. "We were in almost the opposite direction as the big magnetovore out there. You'll notice that all of its companions went back at the same time."

DeSilva shook her head.

"I don't know. I guess we'll be all right if we just stay here and watch. Let's see what they do when they finish with the calving."

Ahead of them, the big torus began to wobble more as it spun. The dark and light bands along its rim became more pronounced, the darker becoming narrow strictures and the lighter bands ballooning outward with each oscillation.

Twice Jacob saw groups of bright herdsmen jet away to head off a magnetovore that came too close, like sheepdogs at the heels of a wayward ram, as others stayed with the ewe.

The wobble deepened and the dark bands grew tighter. The green laser light, scattered below the big torus, dimmed. Finally it disappeared.

The Ghosts moved in. As the big one's nutation reached an almost horizontal pitch, they gathered at the rim to somehow seize it and complete the turnover with a sudden jerk.

The behemoth BOW spun lazily on an axis perpendicular to the magnetic field. For a moment the position held, until the creature suddenly began to fall apart.

Like a necklace with a broken string, the torus split where one of the dark bands tightened to nothing. One by one, as the parent body spun slowly, the light bands, now small individual doughnut shapes themselves, were flung free, each as it rotated to the place where the break occurred. One at a time, they were cast upwards, along the invisible lines of magnetic flux, until they ran like beads across the sky. Of the Big One, the parent, nothing remained.

About fifty of the little doughnut shapes spun dizzyingly in a protecting swarm of bright blue herdsmen. They precessed uncertainly and, from the center of each, a tiny green glow flickered tentatively.

In spite of their careful watch, the ghosts lest several of their erratic charges. Some of the infants, more active than their peers, jetted out of the queue. A brief burst of green brilliance took one baby magnetovore out of the protected area and toward one of the adults that lurked nearby. Jacob hoped it would continue toward the ship. If only the adult torus would get out of the way!

As if it heard his thoughts, the adult began to drop away below the oncoming path of the juvenile. Its rim pulsed with green-blue diamonds as the newborn passed overhead.

Suddenly the torus leaped upward on a column of green plasma. Too late, the juvenile tried to flee. It turned its feeble torch toward its pursuer's rim as it jetted away.

The adult was undeterred. In a moment the baby was overtaken, drawn down into its elder's pulsing central hole and consumed in a flash of vapor.

Jacob realized that he was holding his breath. He let it out and it felt like a sigh.

The babies were now arranged in orderly ranks by their mentors. They began to move away from the herd slowly, while a few herdsmen stayed to keep the adults in line. Jacob watched the brilliant little rings of light until a thick wisp of filament floated in to cut off his view.

"Now we start earning our pay," Helene deSilva whispered. She turned to the pilot. '"Keep the remaining herdsmen aligned with the deck-plane. And ask Culla to please keep his eyes peeled. I want to know if anything comes in from the nadir."

Eyes peeled! Jacob suppressed an involuntary shudder, and firmly said no when his imagination tried to present an image. What kind of an era did this fem come from!

"Okay," the Commandant said. "Let's approach slowly."

"Do you think they'll notice we waited until they were through with the calving?" Jacob asked.

She shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe they thought we were just a timid form of adult tortis. Perhaps they don't even remember our earlier visits."

"Or Jeff's?"

"Or even Jeff's. It wouldn't do to assume too much. Oh, I believe Dr. Martine when she says her machines register a basic intelligence. But what does that mean? In an environment like this .. . even more simple than an ocean on earth, what reason would a race have to develop a functioning semantic skill? Or memory? Those threatening gestures we saw on previous dives don't necessarily indicate a lot of brains.

"They might be like dolphins were before we started genetic experiments a few hundred years ago, lots of intelligence and no mental ambition at all. Hell, we should have brought in people like you, from the Center for Uplift, long ago!"

"You're talking as if evolved intelligence is the only route," he smiled. "Galactic opinion aside for the moment, shouldn't you at least consider another possibility?"

"You mean that the Ghosts might have once been uplifted!?" deSilva looked shocked for a moment. Then the idea soaked in and she leaped on the implications, her eyes sharp. "But if that were the case, then there'd have to have been..."

She was interrupted by the pilot.

"Sir, they're starting to move."'

The Ghosts fluttered in the hot, wispy gas. Blue and green highlights rippled along the surface of each as it hovered lazily, a hundred thousand kilometers above the photosphere. They retreated from the ship slowly, allowing the separation to diminish, until a faint corona of white could be seen surrounding every one.

Jacob felt Fagin come up beside him on his left.

"It would be sad," the Kanten fluted softly, "if such beauty were found sullied by a crime. I could have great trouble sensing evil while struck in awe."

Jacob nodded slowly.

"Angels are bright . . ." he began. But of course, Fagin knew the rest.

Angels are bright, though the brightest fell.

Though all things foul would wear the brows of

grace,

Still grace must look so.

"Culla says they're about to do something?* ^fthe pilot peered ahead with a hand over his ear. " "^ •'

A wisp of darker gas from the filament moved swiftly into the area, momentarily blocking off the view of the Ghosts. When it cleared, all but one had moved farther away.

That one waited as the ship edged slowly closer. It looked different, semi-transparent, bigger and bluer. And simpler. It looked stiff and did not ripple like the others. It moved more deliberately.

An ambassador, Jacob thought.

The Solarian rose slowly as they neared.

"Keep him edge-on," deSilva said. "Don't lose instrument contact!"

The pilot glanced up at her grimly, and turned back to his instruments with tight lips. The ship started to rotate.

The alien rose faster and drew near. The fan-shaped body seemed to beat against the plasma like a bird trying to gain altitude.

"It's toying with us," deSilva muttered.

"How do you know?"

"Because it doesn't have to work that hard to stay overhead." She asked the pilot to speed up the rotation.

The Sun rose on the right and crept toward the zenith. The Ghost continued to beat toward a position overhead, even though it had to be spinning upside down along with the ship. The Sun rolled overhead and then set. Then it rose and set again in less than a minute.

The alien stayed overhead.

The spin accelerated. Jacob gritted his teeth and resisted an urge to grab Fagin's trunk for balance as the ship experienced day and night in seconds. He felt hot, for the first time since the journey to the Sun began. The Ghost stayed maddeningly overhead and the photosphere blasted on and off like a flashing lamp.

"Okay, give it up." deSilva said.

The spinning slowed. Jacob swayed as they came to complete rest. He felt as if a cool breeze was washing his body. First heat, then chills: Am I going to be ill? he wondered.

"It won," deSilva said. "It always does, but it was worth a try. Just once I'd like to try that, with the Refrigerator Laser operating though!" She glanced at the alien overhead. "I wonder what would happen when he got near a fraction of the speed of light."

"You mean you had our refrigerator turned off just then?" Now Jacob couldn't help it. He touched Fagin's trunk lightly.

"Sure," the Commander said. "You don't think we want to fry dozens of innocent toruses and herdsmen do you? That's why we were under a time limit. Otherwise we could have tried to line him up with the rim instruments till hell froze over!" She glared up at the Ghost.

Again, the touching turn of phrase. Jacob wasn't sure whether the woman's fascination lay in her more straightforward qualities or in this way she had with quaint expressions. In any event, the overheating and subsequent cool breezes were explained. For a time the heat of the Sun had been allowed to leak in.

I'm glad that's all it was, he thought.

. . . AND APPARITIONS

"All we get is a dim picture," the crewman said. "The stasis screens must be bending the Ghost's image somehow because it looks warped . . . like it's refracted at an angle through a lens."

"Anyway," he shrugged as he passed the photos around. "This is the best we can do with a hand-held camera."

DeSilva looked at the picture in her hand. It showed a blue, streaky caricature of a man, a stick figure with spindly legs, long arms, and big, splayed hands. The photograph had been taken just before the hands had balled into fists, crude but identifiable.

When his turn came, Jacob concentrated on the face. The eyes were empty holes, as was the ragged mouth. In the photograph they looked black but Jacob recalled that the crimson of the chromosphere had been the real color. The eyes burned red and the maw worked as if mouthing vicious oaths, all in red.

"One thing, though," the crewman went on. "The gay's transparent The H-alpha panes right through. We only notice it in the eyes and mouth because the blue he's putting out doesn't swamp it there. But as far as we can tell, his body doesn't block any of it.'"

"Well, that's your definition of a Ghost if I ever heard one," Jacob said, and handed the picture back.

Glancing up again, for the hundredth time, he asked, "Are you sure the solarian is coming back?"

"It always has," deSilva said. "It was never satisfied with just one round of insults before."

Nearby, Martine and Bubbacub rested, ready to put on their helmets if the alien reappeared. Culla, relieved of his duties on the flip-side, lay in a couch, sucking slowly on a liquitube containing a blue beverage. The big eyes were glossy now. and he looked tired.

"I guess we all should lie down," deSilva said. "It won't do to break our necks looking up. That's where the Ghost will be when he shows."

Jacob chose a seat next to Culla, so he could watch Bubbacub and Martine at work.

The two had little time to do much during the first appearance. No sooner had the Sun Ghost taken a position near the zenith than it had changed into the manlike, threatening shape. Martine hardly got her headset adjusted before the creature leered, shook a balled image of a fist, and then faded away.

But Bubbacub had time to check his ka-ngrl. He announced that the Solarian was not using the particularly potent type of psi the machine was designed to detect and counteract. Not then at least. The little Pil left it turned on anyway, just in case.

Jacob rested back in the seat, and touched the button that allowed it to recline slowly until he looked up at the pink, feathery sky overhead.

It was a relief to learn that the pi-ngrli power was not at work here. But if not, what was the reason for the Ghost's strange behavior? Idly, he wondered again if LaRoque might have been right... that the Solarians knew how to make themselves partly understood because they knew humans from days gone by. Surely men never visited the Sun in the past, but did plasma creatures once go to Earth, and even nurture civilization there? It sounded preposterous, but then, so did Sundiver.

Another thought: If LaRoque was not responsible for the destruction of Jeff's ship, then the Ghosts might be capable of killing them all at any time.

If so, Jacob hoped the journalist-astronaut was right about the rest of it; that the Solarians would feel more restraint in dealing with humans, Pila, and Kan-ten than they had toward a chimpanzee.

Jacob considered trying his own hand at telepathy when the creature next appeared. He'd been tested once and found to have no psi talent, despite extraordinary : hypnotic and memory skills, but maybe he should try-anyway.

A movement to his left caught his eye. Culla, staring at a point in front of him and forty-five degrees to zenith, lifted a deck-mike to his lips.

"Captain," he said, "I believe it ish coming back." The Pring's voice echoed around the ship. "Try angles 120 by 30 degrees."

Culla put the mike down. The flexible cord drew it back into a slot, next to his slender right hand and the now-empty beverage tube.

The red haze darkened briefly as a wisp of darker gas passed the ship. Then the Ghost was back, still small with distance but getting bigger as it approached.

It was brighter this time, and more crisp around the edges. Soon, its blueness was almost painful to look at.

It came once again as a stick figure of a man, the eyes and mouth glowing like coals as it hovered, half way up to zenith.

For several long minutes it stayed there, doing nothing. The figure was definitely malevolent. He could feel it! Dr. Martine's cursing brought him around, and he realized that he had been holding his breath.

"Damn it!" she tore off her helmet. "There's so much noise! One moment I think I'm onto something ... a touch here and there ... and then it's gone!"

"Do not bo-ther," Bubbacub said. The clipped voice came from the Vodor, now lying on the deck next to the little Pil. Bubbacub had his own helmet on and stared intently with small black eyes at the Ghost

"Hu-mans do not have the psi they use. Your attempt, in fact, does cause them pain and some of their anger."

Jacob swallowed quickly. "You're in touch with them?" he and Martine asked almost at once.

"Yes," the mechanical voice said. "Do not bo-ther me." Bubbacub's eyes closed. "Tell me if it moves. Only if it moves!" After that they could get nothing from him.

What's he saying to it? Jacob wondered. He looked at the apparition. What can one say to a creature like that?

Suddenly, the Solarian began to wave its "hands" and move its "mouth." This time its features were more clear. There was none of the image warping they had seen at its first appearance. The creature must have learned to handle the stasis screens; one more example of its ability to adapt. Jacob didn't want to think about what that implied about the safety of the ship.

A flash of color drew Jacob's attention to the left He groped on the panel next to him, then pulled up his deck-mike and switched it to personal.

"Helene, look at about one eight by sixty-five. I think we've got more company."

"Yes," deSilva's voice quietly filled the area of the couch occupied by his head. "I see it. It seems to be in its standard form. Let's see what it does."

The second Ghost approached, hesitantly, from the left. Its rippling, amorphous form was like a patch of oil on the surface of the ocean. Its shape was nothing like a man's.

Dr. Martine drew her breath in sharply when she saw the intruder and started to pull her helmet on.

"Do you think we should arouse Bubbacub?" he asked quickly.

She thought for a moment, then glanced up at the first Solarian. It still waved its "arms" but it hadn't changed positions. Nor had Bubbacub. "He said to tell him if it moves," she said.

She looked up eagerly at the newcomer. "Maybe I should work on this new one and let him go on with the first one undisturbed."

Jacob wasn't sure. So far Bubbacub was the only one to come up with anything positive. Marline's motive for not informing him of the second Solarian was suspect Was she envious of the Pil's success?

Oh well, Jacob shrugged, E.T.'s hate to be interrupted anyway.

The newcomer approached cautiously, in short .fits and starts, toward where its larger and brighter cousin performed its impersonation of an angry man.

Jacob glanced at Culla.

Should I tell him at least? He seems so intent on watching the first ghost. Why hasn't Helene made an announcement? And where's Fagin? I hope he's not missing this.

Somewhere above there was a Sash. Culla stirred.

Jacob looked up. The newcomer was gone. The first Ghost slowly shrank back and faded away.

"What happened," Jacob asked. "I only turned away for a second..."

"I don't know, Friend-Jacob! I wash watching, to see if the being'sh visual behavior might betray some cluesh to itsh nature, when suddenly a shecond one came. The first one attacked the shecond with a bursht of light, and made it depart. Then it too shtarted to leave!"

"You should have told me when new one came," Bubbacub said. He was on his feet, the Vodor around his neck once more. "No mat-ter. I know all I need to know. I now re-port to hu-man deSilva."

He turned and left. Jacob scrambled to his feet to follow.

Fagin awaited them, near deSilva and the Pilot Board. "Did you see it?" Jacob whispered.

"Yes, I had a good view. I am eager to hear what our dear esteemed friend learned."

With a theatrical wave of his arm, Bubbacub asked everyone to listen in.

"It said that it is old. I be-lieve it. It is ver-y old race."

Yes, Jacob thought. That's the first thing Bubbacub would find out.

"The Sol-ar-ians say that they killed the chimp. LaRoque killed him too. They will start to kill hu-mans also, if they do not leave f or-ever."

"What?" deSilva cried, "What are you talking about? how could LaRoque and the Ghosts be responsible!"

"Re-main calm, I urge you," the voice of the Pil, moderated by the Vodor, carried a tone of threat. "The Sol-ar-ian told me that they caused the man to do the thing. They gave him his rage. They gave him a need to kill. They gave him the truth as well."

Jacob finished summarizing Bubbacub's remarks to Dr. Martine.

". . . Then he finished by saying that there was only one way that the Ghosts could have influenced LaRoque from such a distance. And if they used that method it explained the lack of Library references. Anywhere anyone uses that power is taboo, closed off. Babbacub wants us to stick around just long enough to check and then get the hell out of here."

"What power?" Martine asked. She sat with the crude Earth psi helmet in her lap. Nearby Culla listened in, another slender liquitube between his lips.

"It's not pi-ngrli. That's used sometimes legally. Besides, it can't reach that far and he couldn't find any trace of it anyway. No, I think Bubbacub plans to use that stonelike thing."

"The Lethani relic?"

"Yes."

Martine shook her head. She looked down and fiddled with a knob on her helmet.

"It's so complicated. I don't understood it at all. Nothing's gone right ever since we got back to Mercury. No one is what he appears to be."

"What do you mean?"

The parapsychologist paused, then shrugged.

"Never be sure about anyone ... I was so sure that Peter's silly pique with Jeffrey was both genuine and harmless. Now I find that it was artificially induced and deadly. And he was right, I guess, about the Solarians, too. Only it wasn't his idea, it was theirs."

"Do you think they really are our long lost Patrons?"

"Who knows?" she said. "If it's true, it's a tragedy that we can't ever come back here again to talk to them."

"Then you accept Bubbacub's story without reservations?"

"Yes, of course! He's the only one who's ever made contact and besides, I know him. Bubbacub would never mislead us. Truth is his life's work!"

But Jacob knew, now, of whom she spoke when she said "never be sure you know anyone." Dr. Martine was terrified.

"Are you sure that Bubbacub was the only one to make any sort of contact?"

Her eyes widened, then she looked away. "He seems to be the only one with the ability."

"Then why did you stay behind with your helmet on, when Bubbacub called us together for his report?"

"I don't have to take a cross-examination from you!" aha answered-hotly. "If it's any of your business, I stayed to try once more. I was jealous of his success and wanted another go at it! I failed, of course."

Jacob was unconvinced. Marline's testiness seemed uncalled for and it was clear she knew more than she was saying.

"Dr. Martine," he said, "what do you know about a drug called 'Warfarin'?"

"You too!" she reddened. "I told the Base Physician I never heard of it, and I certainly don't know how any got into Dwayne Kepler's medicine. That is, if there ever was any in the first place!"

She turned away. "I think I'd better rest now, if you don't mind. I want to be awake when the Solarians come back."

Jacob ignored her hostility; a bit of the toughness of his other self must have leaked out with the suspicion. But it was obvious Martine wouldn't say any more. He rose to his feet. She pointedly ignored him as she lowered her couch.

Culla met him by the refreshment machines. "You are upshet, Friend-Jacob?"

"Why no, I don't think so. Why do you ask?"

The tall E.T. gazed down at him. He looked tired. The slender shoulders drooped, though the huge eyes were bright.

"I hope you are not taking thish too hard, thish news that Bubbacub hash announced."

Jacob turned fully from the machines and faced Culla, "Take what too hard, Culla? His statements are data. That's all. I'd be disappointed if it turned out that Sundiver has to end. And I'll want some way to verify what he says before I'll agree that's necessary . . .like at least a Library reference. But other than that my strongest emotion is curiosity." Jacob shrugged, irritated at the question. His eyes smarted, probably from an overdose of red light.

Culla slowly shook his large round head. "I think it ish otherwise. Excuse my presumption, but I think you are very dishturbed."

Jacob felt an instant of hot anger. He almost spoke it, but managed to hold back. "Again, what are you talking about, Culla?" He spoke slowly.

"Jacob, you have done a good job in staying neutral in your species' remarkable internal conflict. "But all sophontsh have opinionsh. You are badly hurt to find that Bubbacub made contact where humansh fail. Though you have never expreshed a position on the Origin Question, I know you are not happy to find that humanity did indeed have Patronsh."

Jacob shrugged again.

"It's true, I'm still not convinced by this story of Solarians uplifting mankind in the dim past and then abandoning us before the job's finished. Neither part makes any sense."

Jacob rubbed his right temple. He felt a headache coming on. "And people have been behaving very peculiarly everywhere in this project. Kepler's suffered from some sort of unexplained hysteria and was overly dependent on Martine. LaRoque was more than his usual abrasive self, sometimes self-destructively. And don't forget his alleged sabotage. Then Martine herself turns from an emotional defense of LaRoque to a very strange fear of saying anything that might undermine Bubbacub. It makes me wonder..." he paused.

"Perhapsh the Sholarians are responsible for all of thish. If they could make Mishter LaRoque do a murder from so far away, they might have caused other aberrationsh ash well."

Jacob's hands balled in fists. He looked up at Culla barely able to choke back his anger. The alien's bright eyes were oppressive. He didn't want to be under them.

"Don't Interrupt," he said, tight-lipped, and as calmly as he could.

He could tell that something was wrong. A cloud seemed to surround him. Nothing was very clear but still there was a felt need to say something important. Anything.

He looked quickly around the deck.

Bubbacub and Martine were at their stations again. Both wore their helmets and looked his way. Martin was talking.

The bitch! Probably she's telling the gross arrogant little fool everything I said. Toady!

Helene deSilva stopped by the two while making her rounds, taking their attention away from Culla and Jacob. For a moment he felt better. He wished Culla would go away. It was too bad the fellow had to be put down but a Client must know his place!

DeSilva finished speaking to Bubbacub and Martine, and started to walk toward the refreshment machines. Once again Bubbacub's small black eyes were on him.

Jacob growled. He swiveled away from the beady stare and faced the beverage machine.

Fuck them all. I came here for a drink and that's what I'm going to get. They don't exist anyway!

The machine wavered in front of him. An internal voice was shouting about some sort of emergency but he decided that the voice didn't exist either.

Now this is a strange machine, he thought. I hope it isn't like that sneaky one aboard the Bradbury. That one hadn't been friendly at all.

No, this one has a bunch of transparent 3-D buttons that stand out from the others. In fact there are rows and rows of little buttons, all of them standing out in space.

He reached forward to press one at random, then caught himself. Uh-uh. We'll read the labels this time!

Now what do I want. Coffee?

The little internal voice was screaming for Gyroade. Yes, that's sensible. A wonderful drink, Gyroade. Not only is it delicious, but it also straightens you out. A perfect drink for a world full of hallucinations.

He had to admit that it might be a good idea to have some at that. Something did seem a little fishy. Why was everything going so slowly?

His hand'moved like a snail toward the button he wanted. It shifted back and-forth a few times but finally he was aimed right for it. He was about to press it when the little voice came back, this time begging him to stop!

Of all the nerve! You give me good advice and then you chicken out. Dammit, who needs you anyway?

He pressed. Time speeded up a little, and he heard the sound of liquid pouring.

Who the hell needs anybody! Damn upstart Culla. .Snobby Bubbacub and his fish-cold human consort. Even crazy Fagin . . . dragging me away from Earth to this stupid place.

He bent over and pulled the liquitube out of its slot It looked delicious. . .

Time speeded up now, almost back to normal. He already felt better, as if a great pressure was relieved. Antagonisms and hallucinations seemed to fade away. He smiled at Helene deSilva as she approached. Then he turned to smile at Culla.

Later, he thought, I'll' apologize for being rude. He raised the tube in a toast.

"... been hovering around out there, just at the edge of detection." deSilva was saying. "We're ready whenever it is so maybe you'd better..."

"Shtop, Jacob!" Culla shouted.

DeSilva cried out and leaped forward to grab his hand. Culla joined in, adding his own slight strength to pull the tube away from his lips.

Spoilsports, he thought amiably. Show a puny alien and a ninety-year old woman what a mal can do.

He pulled them off one by one, but they kept attacking. The Commandant even tried some nasty disabling shots but he parried them and brought the drink to his face slowly, triumphantly.

A wall broke and the sense of smell he hadn't known he'd lost returned like a steamroller. He coughed once and looked down at the vile concoction in his hand.

It steamed brown and poisonous with lumps and bubbles. He threw it away. Everyone was looking at him. Culla chattered from the floor where he'd been thrown. DeSilva stood up warily. The other humans were gathering around.

He could hear Fagin's concerned whistle coming from somewhere. Where is Fagin, he thought as he stumbled forward. He made it three steps and then collapsed onto the deck in front of Bubbacub.

He came around slowly. It was difficult because his forehead was so tight. The skin felt stretched like the leather on a drum. But it wasn't dry like leather. It kept getting wet, first with perspiration and then with something else, something cool.

He groaned and brought his hand up. It touched skin, someone else's hand, warm and soft. Female, he could tell by the smell.

Jacob opened his eyes. Dr. Martine sat nearby; with a washcloth in her brown hand. She smiled and bought out a liquitube to hold to his lips.

For a moment he started, then he bent forward to take a sip. It was lemonade, and it tasted wonderful

He finished it off while he looked around himself. The couches scattered on the deck were filled with recumbent figures.

He looked up. The sky was almost black!

"We're on our way back," Martine said.

"How ..." he could feel his larynx hum from disuse. "How long have I been under?"

"About twelve hours."

"Was I sedated?"

She nodded. The Perpetual Professional Smile was back. But it didn't seem so put-on now. He brought a hand to his forehead. It still hurt.

"Then I guess I didn't dream it. What was it I tried to drink yesterday?"

"It was an ammonia compound that we brought along for Bubbacub. It probably wouldn't have killed you. But it would have hurt, a lot.

"Can you tell me why you did it?"

Jacob allowed his head to settle back against the cushion. "Well... it seemed like a pretty good idea at the time."

He shook his head. "Seriously, I guess something went wrong with me. But I'll be damned if I know what it was."

"I should have known something was wrong when you started saying strange things about murders and conspiracies," she nodded. "It's partly my fault for not recognizing the signs. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I think it's just a case of orientation shock. A Sunship dive can be an awful disorienting experience, in so many ways!"

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

"Well, you're right about that last part for sure. But it just occurred to me that some people are probably thinking I was influenced.'¹

Martine started, as if surprised to find him so alert so soon.

"Yes," she said. "In fact Commandant deSilva thought it was the Ghost's work. She said they were probably demonstrating their psi powers to prove their point. She even started talking about shooting back. The theory has merits but I prefer my own."

"That I went crazy?"

"Oh no, not at all! Just disoriented and confused! Culla said you were behaving . . . abnormally in the minutes before your . . . accident. That, plus my own observations..."

"Yes," Jacob nodded. "I owe Culla a real apology ... Ohmigosh! He wasn't hurt, was he? Or Helene?" He started to rise.

Martine pushed him back. "No, no, everyone is okay. Don't worry. I'm sure the only concern anyone had was for your welfare."

Jacob dropped back. He looked down at the empty liquitube. "May I have another?"

"Sure. I'll be right back."

Martine left him alone. He could hear her soft footsteps move toward the refreshment center . . . the place where the "accident" occurred. He winced as he thought about it. He felt shame mixed with disgust. But most of all there was the burning question, WHY?

Somewhere behind him two people spoke softly. Dr. Martine must have met somebody at the R.C.

Jacob knew that sooner or later he would have to make a dive that made Sundiver seem tame. That trance would be a lulu, but it would have to be taken if the truth was to come out. The only question was when? Now, when it might split his mind wide open?

Or back on Earth, in the presence of therapists at the Center, but where the answers might do him, Sundiver and his job no good at all?

Martine came back. She dropped down beside him and offered full liquitube. Helene deSilva was with her. The Commandant sat next to the parapsychologist

He spent several minutes assuring her that he was all right. She brushed his apologies aside.

"I had no idea you were so good at U.C., Jacob," she said.

"U.C.?"

"Unarmed combat. I'm pretty good, though I'm rusty I admit. But you're better. We found out in the surest way, a fight between parties each anxious to disable the other without pain or harm. It's awful hard to do but you're an expert."

He never would have thought it possible to blush at that sort of compliment, but Jacob could feel himself redden.

"Thanks. It's hard to remember but it seems-you were pretty tricky, too."

They looked at each other in complete understanding and grinned.

Martine looked from one to the other. She cleared her throat "I don't think Mr. Demwa should spend too much time talking. A shock like that calls for plenty of rest."

"I just want to know a few things, Doctor, then I'll cooperate. First of all, where's Fagin? I don't see him anywhere."

"Kant Fagin is on flip-side," deSilva said. "He's taking nourishment."

"He was very concerned about you. I'm sure he'll be glad to know you're okay," Martine said.

Jacob relaxed. For some reason he had been worried about Fagin's safety.

"Now tell me what happened after I passed out."

Martine and deSilva shared a glance. Then deSilva shrugged.

"We had another visitation," she said. "It took quite a while. For several hours the Solarian just fluttered around at the edge of visibility. We'd left the toroid herd far behind and with it all of its fellows.

"It's a good thing It waited though. We were in an uproar for a while because of, well..."

"Because of my attention-grabbing performance," Jacob sighed. "But did anyone try to make contact while it flittered out there?"

DeSilva looked at Martine. The doctor shook her head very slightly.

"Nothing much was done then," the Commandant went on hurriedly. "We were still pretty upset. But then, at about fourteen hundred, it disappeared. It came hack a while later in its ... 'threatening mode.' "

Jacob let the interchange between the two women pass. But a thought suddenly occurred to him.

"Say, are you all positive "that they were the same Ghosts at all? Maybe the 'normal' and 'threatening' modes are actually two different species!"

Martine looked blank for a moment. "That could explain ..." Then she shut up.

"Uh, we aren't calling them Ghosts anymore," deSilva said. "Bubbacub says they don't like it."

Jacob felt a moment of irritation, but he suppressed it quickly lest either woman notice it. This conversation wasn't getting them anywhere I

"So what happened when it came in its threatening mode?"

DeSilva frowned.

"Bubbacub talked with it for a while. Then he got angry and made it go away."

"He what?"

"He tried reasoning with it. Quoted the book on Patron-Client rights. Promised trade, even. It just kept making threats. Said it would send psi messages to Earth and cause disaster of some undescribed sort.

"Finally Bubbacub called it quits. He had everybody lie down. Then he pulled out that lump of iron and crystal he was so secretive about. He ordered everyone to cover their eyes, then said some mumbo jumbo and set the darn thing off!"

"What did it do?"

She shrugged again.

"The Progenitors only know, Jacob. There was a dazzling light, a feeling .of pressure in the ears . . . and when we next looked, the Solarian was gone!

"Not only that! We went back to where we thought we'd left the toroid herd. It was gone too. There wasn't a living thing in sight!"

"Nothing at all?" He thought about the beautiful toruses and their bright multicolored masters.

"Nothing," Martine said. "Everything had been scared away. Bubbacub assured us that they hadn't been harmed."

Jacob felt numb. "Well, then at least there's protection now. We can bargain with the Solarians from a position of strength."

DeSilva shook her head sadly.

"Bubbacub says there can be no negotiation. They're evil, Jacob. They'll kill us now, if they can."

"But..."

"And we can't count on Bubbacub anymore. He told the Solarians there'd be vengeance if Earth was ever harmed. But other than that he won't help. The relic goes back to Pila."

She looked down at the deck. Her voice grew husky.

"Sundiver is finished."

19.

IN THE PARLOR

"You mean Jacob called this meeting and he isn't even here?" Helene deSilva asked from the doorway.

"I should not be concerned, Commandant deSilva. He shall arrive. I have never known Mister Demwa to call a meeting that was not well' worth the time of attending."

"Indeed!" LaRoque laughed from one end of the large sofa, with his feet propped up on an ottoman. He spoke sarcastically around the stem of his pipe, and through a haze of smoke. "And why not? What else have we to do here? The 'research' is over, and the studies are done. The Ivory Tower has collapsed in arrogance and it is the month of the long knives. Let Demwa take his time. Whatever he has to say will be more amusing than watching all these serious .faces!"

Dwayne Kepler grimaced from the other end of the sofa. He sat as far from LaRoque as he possibly could. Nervously, he twitched aside the lap blanket a med-aid had just finished adjusting. The med-aid looked up to the physician, who just shrugged.

"Shut up, LaRoque," Kepler said.

LaRoque merely grinned and took out a tool to work on his pipe. "I still think I should have a recording device. Knowing Demwa, this may be historic."

Bubbacub snorted and turned away. He had been pacing. Uncharacteristically he hadn't gone near any of the cushions scattered around the carpeted room. The Pil stopped in front of Culla, standing by the wall, and clicked his quadrilaterally symmetric fingers in a complicated pattern. Culla nodded.

"I am instructed to shay that enough tragedy has occurred because of Mishter LaRoquesh recording de-vishesh. Also Pil Bubbacub hash indicated that he will not remain pasht another five minutes."

Kepler ignored the statement. Methodically, he rubbed his neck as if searching for an itch. A lot of the fleshiness had departed in recent weeks.

LaRoque raised his shoulders once in a gallic shrug. Fagin was silent. Not even the silvery chimes moved at the ends of his blue-green branches.

"Come on in and sit down, Helene," the physician said. "I'm sure the others will be here soon." With his eyes he commiserated. Walking into this room was like wading into a pool of very cold and not very clean water.

She found a seat as far from the-others as possible. Unhappily, she wondered what Jacob Demwa was up to.

I hope it's not the same thing, she thought. If this group in here has anything in common, it's the fact that they don't even want the word "Sundiver" mentioned. They're just on the edge of tearing each others' throats out, but all the same there's this conspiracy of silence. She shook her head. I'm glad this tour is over soon. Maybe things will be better in another fifty years.

She didn't hold out much hope for that. Already the only place you could hear a Beatles tune performed was by a symphony orchestra, of all the monstrosities. And good jazz didn't exist outside of a library. Why did I ever leave home?

Mildred Martine and Chief Donaldson entered. To Helene, their attempts to look nonchalant were pathetic, but no one else seemed to notice.

Interesting. I wonder what those two have in common? They looked around the room and then edged toward a corner behind the only sofa, where Kepler and LaRoque and the tension between them occupied all of the space. LaRoque looked up at Martine and smiled. Was that a conspirational wink? Martine avoided his eye and LaRoque looked disappointed. He returned to lighting his pipe.

"I have had e-nough!" Bubbacub announced finally, and he turned for the door. But before he got there it swung open, apparently on its own. Then Jacob Demwa appeared in the doorway, a white canvas sack over his shoulder. He entered the room whistling softly. Helene blinked unbelievingly. The tune sounded awfully like "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." But surely...

Jacob swung the bag into the air. It came down on the coffee table with a bang that made Dr. Martine jump halfway out of her chair. Kepler's frown deepened and he gripped the arm of the sofa.

Helene couldn't help it. The anachronistic, homely old tune, the loud noise, and Jacob's demeanor broke the wall of tension like a custard pie in the face of someone you didn't particularly like. She laughed. ' Jacob winked once. "Ho ho."

"Are you here to play?" Bubbacub demanded. "You steal my time! Comp-en-sate!"

Jacob smiled. "Why certainly, Pil Bubbacub. I hope that you will be edified by my demonstration. But first, won't you please be seated?"

Bubbacub's jaws snapped together. The small black eyes seemed to burn for a moment, then he snorted and threw himself onto a nearby cushion.

Jacob studied the faces in the room. The expressions were mostly confused or hostile, except for LaRoque, who remained pompously aloof, and Helene, who smiled uncertainly. And Fagin, of course. For the thousandth time he wished the Kanten had eyes.

"When Dr. Kepler invited me to Mercury," he began, "I had some doubts about the Sundiver Project, but approved of the idea overall. After that first meeting I expected to become involved in one of the most exciting events since Contact ... a complex problem of interspecies relations with our nearest and strangest neighbors, the Sun Ghosts.

"Instead, the problem of the Solarians seems to have taken back burner to a complicated web of interstellar intrigue and murder."

Kepler looked up sadly. "Jacob, please. We all know you've been under a strain. Millie thinks we should be kind to you and I agree. But there are limits."

Jacob spread his hands. "If kindness is humoring me, then please do so. I'm sick of being ignored. If you don't listen, I'm sure the Earth authorities will."

Kepler's smile froze. He sat back. "Go ahead, then. I'll listen."

Jacob stepped onto the broad throw rug in the center of the room.

"First: Pierre LaRoque has consistently denied killing Chimp Jeffrey or using his stunner to sabotage the smaller Sunship. He denies having ever been a Probationer and claims that the records on Earth have somehow been fouled up.

"Yet, since our return from the Sun he has consistently refused to take a P-test, which might go a long way toward proving his innocence. Presumably he expects that the results of the test would also be falsified."

"That's right," LaRoque nodded. "Just another lie."

"Even if Physician Laird, Dr. Martine and I jointly supervised?"

LaRoque grunted. "It might prejudice my trial, especially if I decide to sue."

"Why go to trial? You had no motive to kill Jeffrey when you opened the access plate to the R.Q. tuner..."

"Which I deny doing!"

". . . and only a Probie would kill a man in a fit of pique. So why stay in detention?"

"Maybe he's comfortable here," the med-aid commented. Helene frowned. Discipline had gone straight to hell lately, along with morale.

"He refuses the test because he knows he'll fail!" Kepler shouted.

"That is why the Sun-Men chose him to do their kill-ing," Bubbacub added. "That is what they told me."

"And am I a Probationer? Some people seem to think the Ghosts made me try to commit suicide."

"You were un-der stress. Doct-or Mar-tin says so.

Yes?" Bubbacub turned to Marline. Her hands gripped each other whitely but she said nothing.

"We'll get to that in a few minutes," Jacob said. "But before we start I'd like to have a private word with Dr. Kepler and Mr. LaRoque."

Dr. Laird and his assistant moved away politely. Bubbacub glared at being forced to move, but followed suit.

Jacob passed around the back of the sofa. As he bent over between the two men his hand went behind his back. Donaldson leaned forward and placed a small object there which Jacob held tightly.

Jacob looked alternately at Kepler and LaRoque.

"I think you two should cut it out. Especially you, Dr. Kepler."

Kepler hissed. "What in god's name are you talking about?"

"I think you have some property of Mr. LaRoque's. No matter that he got it illegally. He wants it badly. Badly enough to temporarily take a rap he knows won't stick. Maybe enough to change the tone of the articles he's certain to write about all this.

"I don't think the deal will hold anymore. You see, I have the item now."

"My camera!" LaRoque whispered harshly. His eyes shone.

"Quite a little camera, too. A complete little sonic spectrograph. Yes, I have it. I also have the copies of recordings you made that were hidden in Dr. Kepler's rooms."

"You t-traitor," Kepler stammered. "I thought you were a friend..."

"Shut up, you skinny bastard!" LaRoque almost shouted. "You are the one who is a traitor." Contempt seemed to boil from the little writer like steam over-long contained.

Jacob laid a hand on the back of each man. "Both of you will be on no-return orbits if you don't keep your voices down! LaRoque can be charged with espionage and Kepler for blackmail and complicity after the fact in espionage!

"In fact, since the evidence of LaRoque's espionage is also circumstantial evidence that he wouldn't have had time to sabotage Jeffrey's ship, the immediate suspicion would fall on the last person to inspect the ship's generators. Oh I don't think you did it, Dr. Kepler. But I'd be careful if I were you!"

LaRoque fell silent. Kepler chewed on the end of his moustache.

"What do you want?" he said finally.

Jacob tried to resist but the suppressed side was now too much awake. He couldn't help making a little dig.

"Why, I'm not sure yet. Maybe I'll think of something. Just don't let your imagination go wild. Friends of mine on Earth know everything by now."

It wasn't true. But Mr. Hyde did believe in caution.

Helene deSilva strained to overhear what the three men were saying to each other. If she had been one to believe in possession she would have been sure the "familiar faces were moving at the command of invading spirits. Gentle Dr. Kepler, turned taciturn and secretive since their return from the Sun, muttered like a wrathful sage denied his will. LaRoque—thoughtful, cautious—behaved as if his whole world hinged on a careful assessment of affairs.

And Jacob Demwa . . . earlier glimpses hinted at a charisma beneath his quiet, sometimes watery thoughtfulness. It had drawn her even as it frustrated in its peek-a-boo appearances. But now, now it radiated. It compelled like a flame.

Jacob stood straight and announced, "For now, Dr. Kepler has kindly agreed to drop all charges against Pierre LaRoque."

Bubbacub rose from his cushion. "You are mad. If hu-mans condone the kill-ing of their cli-ents, that is their own prob-len?. But the Sun-Men may bend him to do harm a-gain!"

"The Sun-Men never bent him to do anything." Jacob said slowly.

Bubbacub snapped. "As I said, you are mad. I spoke with the Sun-Men. They did not lie."

"If you wish," Jacob bowed. "But I still would like to continue with my synopsis."

Bubbacub snorted, loudly and threw himself again on the cushion. "Mad!" he snapped.

"First," Jacob said. "I would like to thank Dr. Kepler for his gracious permission for Chief Donaldson and Dr. Martine and myself to visit the Photo Labs and study the films from the last dive."

At the mention of Marline's name, Bubbacub's expression changed. So that's what chagrin looks like on a Pil, Jacob thought. He empathized with the little alien. It had been a beautiful trap, now entirely defused.

Jacob told an edited version of their discovery in the Photo Lab, that the flipside spools of the last third of the mission were missing. The only other sound in the room was the tinkling of Fagin's branches.

"For a while, I wondered where these spools could be. I had an idea who took them, but whether he had destroyed them or taken the chance of hiding them I wasn't sure. Finally, I decided to gamble that a 'data-packrat" never throws anything away. I searched a certain sophont's quarters and found the missing spools."

"You dared!" Bubbacub hissed. "If you had prop-er mas-ters I would have you nerve whipped! You dared!"

Helene shook away her surprise. "You mean you admit that you hid Sundiver datatapes, Pil Bubbacub? Why!"

Jacob grinned. "Oh that will become clear. In fact the way this case was going, I thought for sure it would be more complicated than it is. But it's actually quite simple. You see, these tapes make it very clear that Pil Bubbacub has lied."

A low rumbling rose in Bubbacub's throat. The little alien stood very still as if he didn't trust himself to move.

"Well, where are the tapes?" deSilva demanded.

Jacob picked up the sack from the table.

"I've got to give the devil his due, though. It was only luck that I figured the spools would just fit into an empty gas cannister." He pulled out an object and held it up.

"The Lethani relic!" DeSilva gasped. A small trill of surprise escaped Fagin. Mildred Martine stood up, her hand brought to her throat.

"Yes, the Lethani relic. I'm sure Bubbacub counted on a reaction like yours on the obscure chance that his rooms were searched. Naturally, no one would think of disturbing a semi-religious object-of-reverence of an old and powerful race; particularly one that looked like nothing but a slab of meteoric rock and glass!'"

He turned it over in his hands.

"Now watch!"

The relic opened with a twist. A can of some sort was imbedded in one of the halves. Jacob laid the other half down and tugged at the end of the can. Something inside rattled softly. The can suddenly came loose and a dozen small black objects came rolling out and fell to the floor. Culla's mashies clacked.

"The spools!" LaRoque nodded with satisfaction as he fumbled with his pipe.

"Yes," Jacob said. "And on the outer surface of this 'relic' you can find the button which released the previous contents of this now-empty canister. There appear to be some traces left inside. I'll bet anything that they match the substance that Chief Donaldson and I gave Dr. Kepler yesterday when we failed to convince ..." Jacob stopped himself. Then he shrugged. ". . . Traces of an unstable monomolecule which, under a certain sophont's skillful control, spread out in a 'burst of light and sound' to coat the inner surface of the upper hemisphere of the shell of the Sun-ship ..."

DeSilva rose to her feet. Jacob had to speak louder to overcome the rising chatter coming from Culla.

". . . and to effectively block out all green and blue light—the only wavelengths in which we could pick out the Sun Ghosts from their surroundings!"

"The spools!" deSilva cried. "They should show...'"

"They do show toroids, Ghosts . . . hundreds of them! Interestingly there were no anthropoid shapes, but perhaps they didn't make them because our psi patterns indicated we weren't seeing them.

"But oh the confusion in that herd when we blundered right into them without so much as a by-your-leave, toroids and 'normal' Ghosts scattering out of our path . . . all because we couldn't see that we were right in the middle of them!"

"You crazy Eatee!" LaRoque shouted. He shook his fist at Bubbacub. The Pil hissed back but remained still, the fingers of each hand flexing against one another as he watched Jacob.

"The monomolecule was designed to decay just as we were leaving the chromosphere. It slumped in a thin layer of dust on the force field at the rim of the deck, where no one would notice it until Bubbacub could return with Culla and vacuum it up. That's right, isn't it, Culla?"

Culla nodded miserably.

Jacob felt distantly pleased that sympathy came as easily as amoral wrath had earlier. A part of him had begun to get worried. He smiled reassuringly.

"That's okay, Culla. I have no evidence to connect you with anything else. I watched the two of you when you did it and it was pretty dear you were under duress."

The Pring's eyes rose. They were very bright. He nodded once again and the chattering from behind the thick lips subsided slowly. Fagin moved closer to the slender E.T.

Donaldson rose from picking up the recording spools.

"I think we'd better make some provisions for custody." .

Helene had already moved to the telephone. "I'm taking care of that now," she said softly.

Martine sidled up to Jacob and whispered. "Jacob, this is an External Affairs matter now. We should let them handle it from here."

Jacob shook his head. "No. Not just yet. There's a bit more that needs out."

DeSilva put down the phone. "They'll be here shortly. Meanwhile, why don't you go on, Jacob? Is there more?"

"Yes. Two items. One is this."

From the bag on the table he pulled Bubbacub's psi helmet. "I suggest this be kept in storage. I don't know if anyone else remembers, but Bubbacub was wearing it and staring at me when I warped out aboard the Sunship. Being made to do things makes me mad, Bubbacub. You shouldn't have done it." .

Bubbacub made a gesture with his hand that Jacob didn't try to interpret.

"Finally, there's the matter of the death of chimpanzee Jeffrey. Actually, it's the easiest part.

"Bubbacub knew almost everything there was to know about the Galactic technology in Sundiver; the drives, the computer system, the communications ... aspects which Terran scientists haven't even scratched.

"It's only circumstantial evidence that Bubbacub was working on the laser communications pylon, spurning Dr. Kepler's presentation, when Jeff's largely remote-controlled ship blew up. It wouldn't convict in a court of law, but that doesn't matter since Pila have extraterritoriality and all we can do is deport him.

"Another thing that'd be hard to prove would be the hypothesis that Bubbacub planted a false lead in the Space Identification System ... a system linked directly to the Library at LaPaz . . . creating a false report that LaRoque was a Probationer. Still, it's pretty clear that he did. It was a perfect red herring. With everyone sure that LaRoque did it, nobody bothered to really do a detailed double-check of the telemetry on Jeff's dive. Right now I believe I recall that Jeff's ship went into trouble almost exactly when he turned on his closeup cameras, a perfect delayed trigger if that was the technique Bubbacub used. Anyway, we'll probably never know. The telemetry is probably missing or destroyed by now."

Fagin fluted. "Jacob, Culla asks that you stop. Please do not embarrass Pil Bubbacub any further. It would serve no purpose."

Three armed crewmen appeared at the door. They looked at Commandant deSilva expectantly. She motioned for them to wait.

"Just a moment," Jacob said. "We haven't dealt with the most important part, Bubbacub's motives. Why would an important sophont, a representative of a prestigious galactic institution, indulge in theft, forgery, psychic assault, and murder?

"Bubbacub had personal grudges against both Jeffrey and LaRoque, to start with. Jeffrey represented an abomination to him, a species that had been uplifted a mere hundred years before and yet dared to talk back. Jeff's 'uppityness' and his friendship with Culla contributed to Bubbacub's anger.

"But I think he hated what chimpanzees represent most of all. Along with dolphins, they meant instant status for the crude, vulgar human race. The Pila had to fight for half a million years to get to where they are. I guess Bubbacub resents us having it 'easy.'

"As for LaRoque, well, I'd say Bubbacub just didn't like him. Too loud and pushy, I suppose ..."

LaRoque sniffed audibly.

"And perhaps he was insulted when LaRoque suggested that the Soro might have once been our Patrons. The 'upper crust" in Galactic society frowns on species who abandon their clients."

"But those are just personal reasons," Helene objected. "Haven't you got anything better?"

"Jacob," Fagin began. "Please ..."

"Of course Bubbacub had another reason," Jacob said. "He wanted to end Sundiver in a way that would put into disrepute the concept of independent research and boost the status of the Library. He made it seem that he, a Pil, was able to make contact where humans weren't, concocted a story that made Sundiver out to be a bungled operation. Then he faked a Library report to verify his claims about the Solarians and ensure that there would be no more dives!

"It was the failure of the Library to come up with anything that probably irked Bubbacub the most. And it's faking that message that'll get him in the deepest trouble back at home. For that they'll punish him worse than we ever would for killing Jeff."

Bubbacub rose slowly. He carefully brushed his fur flat and then clicked his four-fingered hands together.

"You are ver-y smart," he said to Jacob. --"But se-man-tics bad . . . aim too high. You build too much on small stuff. Hu-mans shall al-ways be small. I shall speak your kaka Terran tongue no more."

With that he removed the Vodor from around his neck and tossed it idly on the table.

"I'm sorry, Pil Bubbacub," deSilva said. "But it appears that we're going to have to restrict your movement until we get instructions from Earth."

Jacob half expected the Pil to nod or shrug but the alien performed another movement that somehow conveyed the same indifference. He turned away and marched stiffly out the door, a small stubby, proud figure leading the large human guards.

Helene deSilva picked up the bottom of the "Lethani relic." She weighed it carefully in her hands, thoughtfully. Then her lips tightened and she threw the object with all her might against the door.

"Murderer," she cursed.

"I've learned my lesson," Martine said slowly. "Never trust anyone over thirty million."

Jacob stood in a daze. The exalted feeling was draining away too quickly. Like a drug, it left behind it an emptiness—a return to rationality but a loss of totality as well. Soon he would begin to wonder if he had done right in releasing everything at once in an orgiastic display of deductive logic.

Martine's remark made him look up.

"Not anyone?" he asked.

Fagin was nudging Culla into a chair. Jacob went over to him.

"I'm sorry, Fagin," he said. "I should have warned you, discussed it with you first. There may be ... complications to this thing, repercussions that I didn't think out." He brought a hand to his forehead.

Fagin whistled softly.

"You unleashed that which you have been restraining, Jacob. I do not understand why you have been so reticent to use your skills, of late, but in this instance justice demanded all of your vigor. It is fortunate that you relented.

"Do not worry too much about what has happened. The Truth was more important than the damage done through minor over-eagerness, or through the, use of techniques too long dormant,"

Jacob wanted to tell Fagin how wrong he was. The "skills" he had unleashed were more than that. They 'were a deadly force within him. He feared that they had done more harm than good.

"What do you think will happen?" he asked, tiredly.

"Why I believe that humanity will discover that it has a powerful enemy. Your government will protest.How it does so will be of great importance, but it will not change the essential facts. Officially the Pila will disown Bubbacub's unfortunate actions. But they are peevish and prideful, if you will excuse a painful but necessarily unkind description of a fellow sophont race.

"That is just one result of this event-chain. But do not worry overmuch. You did not do this thing. All that you did was make humanity aware of the danger. It was bound to happen. It always has happened to wolfling races."

"But why!"

"That, my most esteemed friend, is one of the things I am here to try to discover. Though it may be of little comfort, please note that there are many who would like to see humanity survive. Some of us ... care very much."

25.

A TRAPPED STATE

Jacob crouched in the hatchway, ready to dive back behind the combing at the sight of a tall, gangling alien. So far, so good. Culla hadn't been in the gravity loop.

The turnaround route to flip-side, the only route, might have been a good place for an ambush. But Jacob wasn't particularly surprised that Culla wasn't there, for two reasons.

The first was tactical. Culla's weapon operated on line-of-sight. The loop curved very tightly, so the humans could approach within a few meters without being spotted. An object thrown around the loop would travel most of the way with undiminished velocity. Jacob was now sure of this. He and Hughes had thrown several knives from the ship's galley when they entered the loop. They found them near the flip-side exit in a puddle of ammonia from the liquitubes they'd squeezed ahead of them as they walked the topsyturvy passage.

Culla could have been waiting just beyond the door, but there was another reason he had to leave his, rear undefended. He had only a limited amount of time before the Sunship reached a high orbit. After they got into free space the humans "would be safe from the tossing of the chromospheric storms, and the tough, reflecting physical shell of the ship could deflect enough of the heat of the Sun to keep them alive until help came.

So Culla had to finish them, and himself, off quickly. Jacob felt sure the Pring specialist was by the computer input, ninety degrees around the dome to the right, using his laser eyes to slowly reprogram past the machine's safeguards.

Why he was doing it was a question that would have to wait.

Hughes picked up the knives. With the bag, some liquitubes, and Helene's little stunner, they composed their armory.

Classically, since the alternative was death for all of them, the answer would be for one man to sacrifice himself so the other could finish Culla off.

He and Hughes could carefully time their approach from different directions to surprise Culla at the same moment. Or one man could come in front and the other, aim the stunner from over his shoulder.

But neither plan would work. Their opponent could literally kill a man as fast as he could look at him. Unlike the faked "adult" Sun Ghost projections, which were continuous output, Culla's killer bolts were discharges. Jacob wished he could remember how many he'd fired off during the fight on topside ... or at what repeat frequency. It probably didn't matter. Culla had two eyes and two enemies. One bolt each would probably suffice.

Worst of all, they couldn't be sure that Culla's holographic imaging ability wouldn't enable him to locate them the instant they stepped out onto the floor, from reflections off the inner shell. He probably couldn't hurt them with reflections, but that was poor compensation.

If there weren't so damned much attenuation during the internal bouncing of the beam they could have tried to disable the alien with the P-laser, by letting it sweep the entire ship while the humans and Fagin crowded into the. gravity-loop.

Jacob cursed and wondered what was keeping them with the P-laser. Next to him Hughes mumbled softly into a wall intercom. He turned to Jacob. "They're ready!" he said.

Thanks to their goggles they were spared most of the pain when the dome outside burst with light. Still it took a few moments to blink away tears and adapt to the brightness.

Commandant deSilva had, presumably with Dr. Martine's help, dragged the P-laser to a new position near the rim of the upper deck. If her calculations were right the beam should hit the side of the dome on flip-side exactly where the computer input was. Unfortunately, the complexity of the figure needed to go from point A to B, through the narrow gap at the edge of the deck, meant that the beam probably wouldn't harm Culla.

It did startle him though. At the instant the beam came on, while Jacob was squeezing .his eyes shut, they heard a sudden chattering and sounds of movement far to the right.

When his vision cleared, Jacob saw a thin tracery of bright lines hanging in the air. The passage of the P-laser beam left a track in the small amount of dust in the air. That was fortunate. It would help them avoid it.

"Intercom on max?" he asked quickly.

Hughes gave thumbs up.

"Okay, let's go!"

The P-laser was randomly putting out colors in the blue-green. They hoped it would confuse reflections from the inner shell.

He gathered his legs and counted, "One, two. Go!"

Jacob dashed out across the open space and dove behind one of the hulking recording machines at the rim of the deck. He heard Hughes land hard, two machines clockwise from him.

The man waved once when he glanced back. "Nothing over here!" he whispered harshly. Jacob took a look around the corner of his own machine, using a mirror from the aid-kit, which had been smeared with grease. Hughes had another mirror, from Martine's purse.

Culla wasn't in sight.

Between them, he and his partner could survey about three-fifths of the deck. The computer input was on the other side of the dome, just out of Hughes' view. Jacob would have to take the long way around, darting from one recording machine to another.

The Sunship's shell glowed in spots where the P-laser beam glanced off it. The colors shifted constantly. Otherwise, the red and pink miasma of the chromosphere surrounded them. They had left the big filament minutes before, and the herd of toroids with it, by now a hundred kilometers below.

Below was actually right over Jacob's head. The photosphere, with the Big Spot in the center made a great, flat, endless, fiery ceiling above him, spicules hung like stalactites.

He gathered his legs beneath him and took off, bent over and facing away from any possible ambush.

He leapt over the P-laser beam where its path was traced in floating dust particles, and dove behind the next machine. Quickly he eased the mirror out to look at the territory now exposed.

Culla wasn't in sight.

Neither was Hughes. He whistled two short notes in the brief code they'd agreed upon. All clear. He heard one note, the fellow's reply.

He had to duck under the beam the next time. All the way across the narrow distance his skin crawled, anticipating a searing bolt of light along his Flank.

He stumbled behind the machine and caught hold of it to steady himself, breathing heavily. That wasn't right! He shouldn't be so tired already. Something was wrong.

Jacob swallowed once then began to slide the mirror out along the counter-clockwise edge of the machine.

Pain lanced into his fingertips and he dropped the mirror with a cry. He stopped just short of popping the hand in his mouth, and held it, instead, a few inches away, his mouth open in agony.

Automatically, he started to lay over a light pain relief trance. The red pokers started to fade as the fingers seemed to grow more distant. Then the flow of relief stopped. It was like a tug of war. He could only accomplish so much; a counter pressure resisted the hypnosis with equal strength no matter how hard he concentrated.

Another of Hyde's tricks. Well there was no time to dicker with him . . . whatever the hell he wanted. He looked at the hand, now that the pain was barely bearable. The index and fourth fingers were badly fried. The others were less damaged.

He managed to whistle a short code to Hughes. It was time to put his plan into effect, the only plan with any real chance of success.

Their only chance lay in getting into space. Time-compression was frozen on automatic—the first thing Culla took care of after the maser link—their subjective time would pretty closely match the actual time it took to leave the chromosphere.

Since assaulting Culla was almost certainly futile, the best way to delay the alien's murder-suicide would be to talk to him.

Jacob took a couple of breaths as he leaned back against the holo-recorder, careful to keep his ears awake. Culla was always a noisy walker. That was his best hope against out and out attack by the Pring. If Culla made too much sound out in the open, Jacob might get a chance to use the stunner he clutched in his good hand. It had a wide beam and wouldn't take much aiming.

"Culla!" he shouted. "Don't you think this has gone far enough? Why don't you come out now and we'll talk!"

He listened. There was a faint buzzing, as if Culla's mashies were chattering softly behind the thick prehensile lips. During the fight topside, half of the problem facing him and- Donaldson had been avoiding the flashing white grinders.

"Culla!" he repeated. "I know it's stupid to judge an alien by your own species' values, but I really thought you were a friend. You owe us an explanation! Talk to us! If you're acting under Bubbacub's orders, you can surrender and I swear we'll all say you put up a hell of a fight!"

The buzzing grew louder. There was a brief shuffle of footsteps. One, two, three . . . but that was all. Not enough to get a fix on.

"Jacob, I am shorry," Culla's voice carried softly across the deck.

"You musht be told, before, we die, but firsht I ashk that you have that lasher turned off. It hurtsh!"

"Culla, so does my hand."

The Pririg sounded woebegone. "I am sho, sho, shorry, Jacob. Pleash undershtand that you are my friend. It ish partly for your shpeciesh that I do thish.

"Theshe are neceshary crimesh, Jacob. I am only glad that death ish near sho that I may be free of memory."

Jacob was astonished by the alien's sophistry. He had never expected such sophomore whinings from Culla, whatever his reasons for what he'd done. He was about to frame a reply when Helene deSilva's voice boomed over the intercom.

"Jacob? Can you hear me? The gravity thrust is deteriorating fast. We're losing headway."

What she didn't say was the threat. If something wasn't done soon they'd begin the long fall toward the photosphere, a fall from which they'd never return.

Once in the grip of the convection cells, the ship would be pulled downward into the stellar core. If there was a ship left, by then.

"You shee, Jacob," Culla said. "To delay me will do no good. It ish already done. I will shtay to make shertain you cannot correct it.

"But pleashe, let ush talk until the end. I do not wish to die ash enemiesh."

Jacob stared out into the wispy, hydrogen-red atmosphere of the Sun. Tendrils of fiery gas were still floating 'downwards' (up, to him), past the ship, but that could be a function of the motion of the gas in this area at this time. Certainly they were going by much less quickly. It could be that the ship was already falling.

"Your dischovery of my talent and my hoax wash most ashtute, Jacob. You combined many obshcure cluesh to find the anshwer! Tying in the background of my race wash a brilliant shtroke!

"Tell me, although I avoided the rim detectorsh with my phantomsh, didn't it throw you off that they shometimesh appeared on topshide when I wash on flip-shide?"

Jacob was trying to think. He had the cool side of the stun gun against his cheek. It felt good, but it wasn't helping him come up with ideas. And he had to spare some of his attention to talk to Culla.

"I never bothered to think about it, Culla. I suppose you just leaned over and beamed through the transparent deck-suspension field. That'd explain why the image looked refracted. It was actually reflected, at an angle, inside the shell."

Actually that was a valid clue. Jacob wondered why he'd missed it.

And the bright blue light, during his deep trance in Baja! It happened just before he awoke to see Culla standing there! The Eatee must have taken a hologram of him! What a way to get to know somebody and never forget his face!

"Culla," he said slowly. "Not that I'm one to hold a grudge or anything, but were you responsible for my crazy behavior at the end of the last dive?"

There was a pause. Then Culla spoke. His lisp was getting worse.

"Yesh, Jacob. I am shorry, but you were getting too inquishitive. I hoped to dishcredit you. I failed."

"But how ..."

"I lishtened to Dr. Martine talk about the effect of glare on humansh, Jacob!"

The Pring almost shouted. For the first time in Jacob's memory, Culla had interrupted somebody. "I ekshperi-mented on Doctor Kepler for months! Den on La-Roque and Jeff . . . den on you. I ushed a narrow diffracted beam. No one could shee it, but it unfocushed your thoughtshl

"I did not know what you would do. But I knew it would be embarrasshing. Again, I am shorry. It wash neceshary!"

They had definitely stopped rising. The big filament that they had left only a few minutes before loomed over Jacob's head. High streamers twisted and curled up toward the ship, like grasping fingers.

Jacob had been trying to find a way, but his imagination was blocked by a powerful barrier.

All right! I give up!

He called on his neurosis to offer its terms. What the hell did the damned thing want of him?

He shook his head. He'd have to invoke the emergency clause. Hyde was going to have to come out and become part of him, like in the bad old days. Like when he chased down LaRoque on Mercury, and when he broke into the Photo Lab. He got ready to go into the trance.

"Why Culla. Tell me why you did all this!"

Not that it mattered. Maybe. Hughes was listening. Perhaps Helene was recording. Jacob was too busy to care.

Resistance! In the non-linear, non-orthogonal coordinates of thought he sifted feelings and gestalts through a sieve. To whatever extent the old automatic systems still worked, he set them off to do their jobs.

Slowly, the window dressing and camouflage was stripped away and he came face to face with his other half.

The battlements, unscalable in every past siege, were even more formidable now. The earthen breastworks had been replaced by stone. The abatis was made of sharpened needles, slender and twenty miles long. At the top of the highest tower a flag rippled. The pennant read "Loyalty." It flew above two stakes, on each of which a head was impaled.

One head he recognized at once. It was his own. The blood that, dripped from the severed neck still glistened. The expression was one of remorse.

The other head set him shivering. It was Helene's. Her face was streaked and pockmarked, and as he watched the eyes fluttered weakly. The head was still alive.

But why! Why this rage against Helene? And why the overtones of suicide . . . this unwillingness to join with him to create the near ubermensch he once had been?

If Culla decided to attack now, he'd be helpless. His ears were filled with the cry of a whistling wind. There was a roar of jets and then the sound of someone falling... the sound of someone calling as she fell past him.

And for the first time he could make out her words.

"Jake! Watch that first step ... !"

Is that all? Then why all the fuss over it? Why the months trying to drag out what turned out to be Tania's last ironic dig?

Of course. His neurosis was letting him see, now that death was imminent, that the hidden words had been another red herring. Hyde was hiding something else. It was...

Guilt.

He knew he carried a burden of it after the affair on the Vanilla Needle, but how much he'd never realized. He now saw how sick this Jekyll and Hyde arrangement he'd been living with really was. Instead of slowly healing the trauma of a painful loss, he'd sealed off an artificial entity, to grow and feed on him and on his shame for having let Tania fall... for the supreme arrogance of the man who, on that crazy day twenty miles high, thought he could do two things at once.

It had been just another form of arrogance ... a belief that he could bypass the normal, human way of recovering from grief, the cycle of pain and transcendency by which the billions of his fellow human beings coped when each suffered a loss. That and the comfort of closeness to other people.

And now he was trapped. The meaning of the pennant on the battlements was clear now. In his sickness he'd thought to expiate part of his guilt by demonstrations of loyalty to the person he'd failed. Not overt loyalty, but loyalty deep within ... a sick loyalty based on witholding himself from everybody ... all the while convinced that he was all right since he'd had lovers!

No wonder Hyde hated Helene! No wonder he wanted Jacob Demwa dead as well!

Tania would never have approved of you, he told it. But it wasn't listening. It had its own logic and had no use for his.

Hell, she'd have loved Helene!

It didn't do any good. The barrier was firm. He opened his eyes.

The red of the chromosphere had deepened. They were in the filament now. A flash of color, seen even through his goggles, sent him glancing to the left.

It was a toroid. They were back amidst the herd.

As he watched, several more drifted past, their rims festooned with bright designs. They spun like mad doughnuts, oblivious to the peril of the Sunship.

"Jacob, .you have shaid nothing," Culla's droning, lisping voice had become background. At the mention of his name Jacob paid attention.

"Shurely you have shome opinion on my motivesh. Cannot you shee that de greater good will come of dish . . . not only for my shpecies but for yoursh and your Clientsh ash well?"

Jacob shook his head vigorously to clear it. The Hyde-induced drowsiness was something he had to fight! The only silver lining was that his hand no longer hurt.

"Culla, I must think about this for a little while. Can we retire a ways and confer? I can pick up some food for you and maybe we can work something out."

There was a pause. Then Culla spoke slowly.

"You are very tricky, Jacob. I am tempted but now I shee dat it will be better if you and your friend stay shtill. In fact. I will make certain. If either of you movesh I will 'shee' him."

Numbly, Jacob wondered what was so "tricky" about offering the alien food. Why had that idea popped into his head?

They were falling faster now. Overhead the herd of toruses stretched" toward the ominous wall of the photosphere. The nearest shone in blues and greens as they swept past. The colors faded with distance. The farthest beasts looked like tiny dim wedding rings, each poised on a tiny flicker of green light.

There was movement among the nearest magne-tovores. As the ship fell, one after another moved aside and "downward" from Jacob's upside-down perspective. Once a flash of green filled the Sunship as a tail-laser swept over them. The fact that they weren't destroyed meant that the automatic screens were still working.

Outside, a fluttering shape shot past Jacob, from over his head out, past the deck at his feet. Then another rippling apparition appeared, lingering for a moment outside the shell near him, its body slick with iridescent colors. Then it sped upward, out of sight.

The Sun Ghosts were gathering. Perhaps the Sun-ship's headlong fall had finally piqued their curiosity.

They had passed the largest part of the herd by now. There was a cluster of large magnetovores just overhead, in their line of descent. Tiny bright herdsmen danced around the group. Jacob hoped they'd get out of the way. No sense in taking anyone else with them. The incandescent trail of the ship's Refrigerator Laser cut dangerously close.

Jacob gathered himself together. There was nothing else to do. He and Hughes would have to try a frontal assault on Culla. He whistled a code, two short and two long. There was a pause and then there was an answer. The other man was ready.

He'd wait until the first sound. They'd agreed that, when they were close enough, any attack with any chance of success would have to come the instant any noise was made, before Culla could be alerted. Since Hughes had farther to go, presumably, he'd move first.

He tensed into a crouch and forced himself to concentrate only on the attack. The stunner rested in the sweaty palm of his left hand. He ignored the distracting tremors that erupted from an isolated part of his own mind.

A sound, like someone falling, came from somewhere to the right. Jacob stepped out from behind the machine, pressing the firing stud of the stunner at the same instant.

No bolt of light greeted him. Culla wasn't there. One of the precious stunner charges was gone.

He ran forward as fast as he could. If he could catch the alien with his back turned to deal with Hughes . . .

The lighting was changing. As he ran just a few steps the red brightness of the photosphere overhead was swiftly replaced by a blue-green shine from above. Jacob spared the briefest of glances overhead as he dashed forward. The light came from toruses. The huge Solarian beasts were coming up fast from below the Sunship on a collision course.

Alarms rang, and Helene deSilva's voice came on, loudly, with a warning. As the blueness grew brighter, Jacob dove over a trace made by the P-laser beam in the dusty air, and landed just two meters away from Culla.

Just beyond the Pring, the crewman Hughes knelt on the ground, holding up bloody hands, his knives scattered on the ground. He stared up at Culla dully, expecting the coup de grace.

Jacob raised the stunner as Culla swiveled, warned by the sound of his arrival. For the briefest of instants Jacob thought he'd made it as he pressed down on the firing stud.

Then his entire left hand erupted in agony. A spasm flung it up and the gun flew away. For a moment the deck seemed to sway, then his vision cleared and Culla was standing before him, eyes dull. The Pring's mashies were now fully exposed, waving at the ends of the tentacular "lips."

"I am shorry, Jacob." The alien slurred so badly Jacob could barely make out the words. "It musht be thish way."

The Eatee planned to finish him off with his cleavers! Jacob stumbled back in fear and disgust. Culla followed, the mashies clacking together slowly, powerfully with the rhythm of his footsteps.

A great sense of resignation washed over Jacob, a feeling of defeat and imminent death. It took the distance out of his backward steps. The throbbing in his hand meant nothing next to the closeness of extinction.

"No!" he shouted hoarsely. He launched himself forward, head down, toward Culla.

At that instant Helene's voice came on again and the blueness overhead took over everything. There was a distant humming and then a powerful force lifted them off the floor, into the air above the violently heaving deck.

31.

PROPAGATION

In the springtime the whales go north again.

Several of the grey humps that broached and spumed in the distance had not been born when he last stood on a shore and watched a California migration pass by. He wondered if any of the grey whales still sang "The Ballad of Jacob and the Sphinx."

Probably not. It never-was. a favorite of Greys anyway. The song was too irreverent, too . . . beluga for their sober temperament. The Greys were complacent snobs, but he loved them anyway.

The air boomed with the noise of the breakers, crashing into the rocks at his feet. It was wet with sea water and filled his lungs with the paradoxical satiated-hungry feeling that others got from breathing deep in a bakery shop. There was a serenity that came with the pulse of the ocean, plus an expectation that the tide would always wash up changes.

They'd given him a chair, at the hospital in Santa Barbara, but Jacob preferred the cane. It gave him less mobility, but the exercise would shorten his convalescence. Three months after waking up in that antiseptic organ factory had left him desperate to get back on his feet, and to experience something that was pleasantly, naturally dirty.

Such as Helena's way of talking. It defied all logic that a person born at the height of the old Bureaucracy would have so uninhibited a mouth as to make a Confederacy Citizen blush. But when Helene felt she was among friends her language became impressive and her vocabulary astonishing. She said that it came from being raised on a power satellite. Then she smiled and refused to explain any further until he reciprocated With acts she knew he wasn't ready yet to perform. As if she was!

One month to go before the physicians would take them off of hormone suppressants, after the bulk of cell regrowth was completed. Another month before they'd be cleared for anything as rigorous as space flight. And yet she insisted on pulling out that dogeared copy of NASA Sutra, wondering teasingly if he would have the stamina!

Well, the doctors said that frustration helps recuperation. Sharpens the will to get back to normal, or some such nonsense.

If Helene keeps up her teasing much longer they're all going to be surprised! Jacob didn't believe much in timetables anyway.

Ifni! That water looks good! Nice and cold. There has to be a way to make nerves grow faster! Something that helps even better than auto-suggestion.

He turned away from the rocks and slowly walked back to the patio of his uncle's long, rambling house. He used the cane liberally, perhaps more than necessary, enjoying the dramatic touch. It made being ill slightly less unpleasant.

As usual, Uncle James was flirting with Helene. She encouraged him shamelessly.

Serves the old bastard right, he thought, after all the trouble he caused.

"My boy," Uncle James threw up his hands. "We were just about to go after you, truly we were."

Jacob smiled lazily. "No hurry, Jim. I'm sure our interstellar explorer here had plenty of interesting stories to tell. Did you tell him the one about the black hole, dear?"

Helene grinned nastily and made a surreptitious gesture, "Why, Jake, you yourself told me not to. But If you think your uncle would like to hear it..."

Jacob shook his head, Held handle his uncle himself. Helene could get a little rough.

Ms. deSilva was a great pilot and in the last few weeks she'd been an imaginative co-conspirator as well But their personal relationship left Jacob dizzy. Her personality was ... powerful.

When she'd learned, on awakening, that the Calypso had jumped, Helene had signed onto the gang designing the new Vesarius II. The reason, she announced brazenly, was to have three years to subject Jacob Demwa to a full course of Pavlovian conditioning. At the end of said time she would ring a little bell and he would, supposedly, decide to become a Jumper.

Jacob had his reservations, but it was already clear that Helene deSilva had complete control over his salivary glands.

Uncle James was more nervous than he'd ever seen him. The usually imperturbable politician seemed decidedly ill at ease. The rakish Irish charm of the Al-varez side of the family was subdued. The grey head nodded nervously. His green eyes seemed unnaturally sad.

"Um, Jacob, my boy. Our guests have arrived. They are waiting in the study and Christien is looking after them.

"Now, I hope you are going to be reasonable about this matter. There really was no reason to invite that government fellow. We could have settled this ourselves.

"Now as I see it..."

Jacob held up his free hand. "Uncle, please. We've been through this.

"The matter has to be adjudicated. If you refuse the services of the Secrets Registration people, I'll just have to call a family council and present the matter to them! You know Uncle Jeremy, he'll probably opt for publicly announcing the whole thing. It'd make good press, all right, but the Department of Overt Prosecutions would have the case then, and you'd have five years with a little thing in your rump going 'beep . . . beep . . . beep.'"

Jacob leaned against Helena's shoulder, more for the contact than for support, and flashed both hands in front of Uncle James' eyes. With each "beep" the man's aristocratic face paled a little. Helene started to giggle, then she hiccupped.

"Excuse me," she said demurely.

"Don't be sarcastic," Jacob commented. He pinched her then reclaimed his cane.

The study wasn't as impressive as the one In Alvarez Hall, in Caracas, but this house was in California. That made up for a lot. Jacob hoped he and his uncle still spoke after today.

Stucco walls and false beams emphasized the Spanish aspect. Display cases, containing James' collection of Bureaucracy-era Samizdat publications, stood out prominently among the bookshelves.

In the mantle was carved a long motto.

"The People, United, Shall Never Be Defeated."

Fagin fluted a warm greeting. Jacob bowed and went through a long, formal salutation, just to please the Kanten. Fagin had visited him regularly in the hospital. It had been difficult at first, between them—each convinced he was deeply indebted to the other. Finally they'd agreed to disagree.

When the TAASF rescue team had broken into the Sunship, as it hurtled outward on its laser-assisted hyperbolic orbit, they were amazed by the crumpled, frozen condition of the human crew. They didn't quite know what to make of the smashed body of the Pring, on flip-side. But what amazed them most was Fagin, hanging upside down by those small sharp spikes in his root-pods while the laser still put out its potent thrust. The cold had not ruptured almost a quarter of his cells, as it had the humans, and he appeared to have come through the pounding ride through the photosphere unscathed.

In spite of himself, Fagjn of the Institute of Progress —the perpetual observer and manipulator—had become, himself, a unique personage. He was probably the only sophont alive anywhere who could describe what it was like to fly, hanging upside down, through the thick, opaque fire at the photosphere. Now he had a story of his own to tell.

It must have been painful for the Kanten. Nobody believed a word of his story until Helene's tapes were replayed.

Jacob said hello to Pierre LaRoque. The man had regained much of his color since their last meeting, not to mention his appetite. He'd been wolfing down Christien's hors d'oeuvres. Still confined to his chair, he smiled and nodded silently to Jacob and Helene. Jacob suspected LaRoque's mouth was too full to talk.

The last guest was a tall, narrow-faced man with blonde hair and light blue eyes. He rose from the couch and offered his hand.

"Han Nielsen, at your service, Mr. Demwa. On the basis of the news reports alone I am proud to meet you. Of course, Secrets Registration knows everything the government knows, so I am doubly impressed. I assume, though, that you have called us in to deal with a matter that the government is not to know?"

Jacob and Helene sat on the couch across from him, their backs to a window overlooking the ocean.

"Yes, that's correct, Mr. Nielsen. Actually, there are a couple of matters. We'd like to apply for a seal and for adjudication by the Terragens Council."

Nielsen frowned. "Surely you must realize that the council is barely an infant at this point. The delegates appointed by the colonies have not even arrived! The Confederacy b . . . civil servants," (Had he been about to say the dirty word 'bureaucrats'?) "don't even like the idea of having a supra-legal Secrets Registration to enforce honesty above secular law. The Terragens is even less popular.

"Even though it's been shown that it's the only way to deal with the crisis we've faced since Contact?" Helene asked.

"Even so. The Feds are reconciled to the fact that it will eventually take jurisdiction over interstellar and interspecies affairs, but they don't like it and they're dragging their feet every step of the way."

"But that's just the point," Jacob said. "The crisis was bad before this debacle on .Mercury, bad enough to force the creation of the council. But it was still manageable. Sundiver has probably changed that." Nielsen looked grim. "I know." "Do you?" Jacob rested his hands on his knees and leaned forward. "You've seen Fagin's report on the probable reaction of the Pila to Bubbacub's exposed pecadilloes on Mercury. And that report was written well before this whole business regarding Culla came to light!"

"And the Confederacy knows everything," Nielsen grimaced. "Culla's actions, his weird apologia, the whole capsule."

"Well after all," Jacob sighed. "They are the government. They make foreign policy. Besides, Helene had no way of knowing we'd live through that mess down there. She recorded everything."

"It never occurred to me," Helene said. "Until Fagin explained, that it might be better if the Feds never found out the truth, or that the Terragens Council might be better suited to handle this mess."

"Better suited, perhaps, but what do you expect us the Council to do? It'll take years to build up acceptance and legitimacy. Why should they risk it all by intervening in this situation?"

For a moment no one spoke. Then Nielsen shrugged. From his briefcase he pulled a small recording cube, which he activated and placed in the center of the room, on the floor.

"This conversation is under seal by the Secrets Registration. Why don't you start, Dr. deSilva." Helene ticked off points with the fingers of her hand. "One, we know that Bubbacub perpetrated a crime in the eyes of both the Library Institute and his own race by falsifying a Library report, and perpetrating a hoax on Sundiver; to wit: that he had communicated with the Solarians and had used his 'Lethani relic' to protect us from their wrath.

"We think we know Bubbacub's motives for doing what he did. He was embarrassed by the failure of the Library to reference the Sun Ghosts. He wanted to rub the 'wolfling' race's collective nose in its inferiority, as well.

"By Galactic Tradition this situation would resolve itself by both the Pila and the Library bribing Earth to 'keep its mouth shut.' The, Confederacy would be able to choose its reward with few strings attached, though the human race would have to face enmity from the Pila in the future simply because their pride had been hurt., ,

"They could still increase their efforts to remove pro-visionary-sophont status from our Clients, the chimps and dolphins. There has been talk of placing humanity under some sort of 'adoptive' Client status ... 'to guide us through this difficult transition.' Have I summed up the situation fairly well, so far?"

Jacob nodded. "Fine. Except you left out my own stupidity. On Mercury I accused Bubbacub publicly! That little two-year pledge we signed was never taken seriously, and the Feds have waited too long to, put an emergency sequester on this case. Probably half of the spiral arm knows the story by now.

"That means we've lost what little leverage we would Have had with the Pila by blackmail. They'll hold nothing back in their efforts to get us 'adopted,' and they'll use 'reparations' for Bubbacub's crime as an excuse to force us to accept all kinds of aid that we don't want." He motioned for Helene to continue. "Point number two; we now know that the one behind this fiasco was Culla. Apparently Culla never intended that humanity discover Bubbacub's pecadillo. He had his own blackmail scheme in mind.

"By encouraging Jeffrey's friendship he got the chimpanzee to try to 'liberate' him, thus enraging Bubbacub. Jeffrey's subsequent death left Sundiver in such a state of confusion that Bubbacub would be encouraged to think that anything he did would be believed. It's possible that Dwayne Kepler's apparent mental deterioration was part of this campaign, induced by Culla's 'glare psychosis' technique.

"The most important part of Culla's plan was the hoax of the anthropomorphic Ghosts. That part was magnificently executed. It fooled everybody. With talents like those, it's not hard to see why the Pring think they can take on the Pila in a bid for independence. They're one of the most deceptively potent races I've ever come across or heard of."

"But if the Pila were Patrons to the Pring," James objected. "And if they uplifted Culla's ancestors from near animals, why wasn't Bubbacub aware of the possibility that the Ghosts were Culla's hoax?"

"If I may be allowed to comment on this," Fagin fluted. "The Pring were allowed to select the assistant who would accompany Bubbacub. My institute has independent information that Culla was a figure of some importance, on one of their terraformed planets, in an artistic endeavor that we have, until now, not been able to witness. We had attributed the Pring secretiveness on this matter to habit patterns inherited from the Pila. Now, however, we might conjecture that it is the Pila themselves who were not to witness the art. In their complacent superiority, the Pila must have cooperated unknowingly by denigrating their Clients' endeavors."

"And this art form is?"

"The art form must, logically, be holographic projection. It is possible that the Pring have been experimenting for most of, the hundred millennia of their sentience, in secret from their Patrons. I am in awe of the dedication it would have taken to keep a secret for so long."

Nielsen whistled lowly. "They must want their release awful, bad. But I'still don't understand, though I've listened to all of the tapes, why Culla pulled these pranks with Sundiver! How could the hoax of the anthropomorphic Sun Ghosts, the death of Jeffrey, or trapping Bubbacub into his error ever help the Pring?"

Helene glanced at Jacob. He nodded. "This is still your part, Helene. You figured most of it out." Helene took a deep breath.

"You see, Culla never intended that Bubbacub be exposed on Mercury. He snared his boss into lying and pulling that stunt with the Lethani relic, but he expected him to be believed, here at least.

"If his plan had carried through he would have reported two assertions to the Library Institute; one, that Bubbacub was a fool and a liar who had been saved from embarrassment by the quick thinking of his assistant, and two, that humans were just a pack of harmless idiots and should be ignored. "I'll cover the second point first. "On the face of it, it is obvious that no one out there would believe this crazy story of 'man-shaped ghosts' fluttering around in a star; especially when the Library has no mention of them.

"Imagine how the galaxy would react to a tale about plasma creatures which 'shake their fists' and miraculously" avoid having their pictures taken so there can be no proof they exist! Having heard that, most observers would never bother to examine the evidence we did have, the recordings of toroids and of the real Solarians!

"The galaxy on the whole looks on Terrestrial 'research' with amused contempt. Culla apparently wanted Sundiver to be laughed out without a hearing."

Across the room, Pierre LaRoque blushed. No one said anything about the remarks he'd made on "Terrestrial research" over a year back.

"The quick explanation Culla gave, when he tried to kill us all, was that he faked the Ghosts for our own good. If we looked foolish we might make less of a splash when we announced life in the Sun ... a splash that would give humanity more publicity in a time when we should be studying quietly to catch up with everyone else."

Nielsen frowned. "He may have had a point."

Helene shrugged. "It's too late now.

"Anyway, it seems, as I have said, that Culla intended to report to the Library, and to the Soro, that humans were harmless idiots and, more importantly, that Bubbacub had been a party to that idiocy . . . that he had believed in the Ghosts and lied on the basis of that belief!"

Helene turned to face Fagin. "Is that a fair summary of what we discussed, Kant Fagin?"

The Kanten whistled softly, "I would think so. Trusting in the 'seal' of the Secrets Registration organization, I will state confidentially that my Institute has received intelligence regarding activities of the Pring and Pila that now make sense in the light of what we have now learned. The Pring are apparently engaged in a campaign to discredit the Pila. Therein lies an opportunity and a danger to humanity.

"The opportunity is that your Confederacy could offer evidence of Culla's betrayal to the Pila, so that those sophonts may show how they have been manipulated. If the Soro then came down against the Pring,

Culla's race would be hard pressed to find a protector. They might be lowered in status, their colonies eliminated, populations 'reduced.'

"There might be immediate rewards for humanity in this act, but it would do little to change the long range enmity of the Pil. Their psychology does not work that way. They might suspend their attempts to have humanity 'adopted.' They might be willing to accept restraints on the reparations they will insist on paying for Bubbacub's crime, but in the long run it will not win their friendship. Owing humanity a debt will only increase their hatred.

"In addition, there is the fact that many of the more 'liberal' species, on whose protection humanity has so far relied, would not appreciate your providing the Pila with a Casus Belli for another of their Jihads. The Tymbrimi might withdraw their consulate from Luna.

"Finally there is the ethical consideration. It would take long for me to discuss all of the reasons. Some of them you would probably not understand. But the Institute of Progress is anxious that the Pring not be devastated. They are young and impulsive. Almost as much so as humanity. But they show great promise. For the entire species to suffer terrible depredations, because a few of its members engage in a scheme to end a hundred millennia of servitude, would he a terrible tragedy.

"For these reasons I would recommend that Culla's crimes be placed under seal Certainly rumors would soon drift about. But the Soro will be aloof to rumors bandied about by the likes of men." '

Fagin's chimes tinkled softly as a breeze came in the window. Nielsen was staring at the floor.

"No wonder Culla tried to kill himself and everyone else aboard the ship, when Jacob figured him out! If the Pila get official testimony on Culla's actions, the Pring are probably doomed."

"What do you think the Confederacy will do?" Jacob asked.

"Do?" He laughed humorlessly. "Why they'll offer the evidence to Pila with bended knee, of course. Ifni! It's a chance to keep them from 'giving' us a full sector Library Branch and ten thousand technicians to staff it! It's a chance to keep them from 'giving' us modern ships that no human engineer could possibly understand and no human crew could operate without 'advisors.' It'd put off indefinitely those damned 'adoption procedures'!" He spread his hands. "And it's pretty clear that the Confederacy won't stick its neck out for the race of a sophont who killed one of our Clients, damn near wrecked our hottest project, and attempted to make humans look like idiots among the peoples of the galaxy!

"And when you get right down to it, could you blame them?"

Jacob's Uncle James cleared his throat to gain their attention.

"We can try to put the entire episode under seal," he suggested. "I am not without influence in some circles. If I put in a good word..."

"You can't put in a good word, Jim," Jacob said. "You're a participant in this mess, in a minor way. If you try to involve yourself the truth will eventually come out."

"What truth is that?" Nielsen asked.

Jacob frowned at his uncle then at LaRoque. The Frenchman had imperturbably begun to nibble on more hors d'oeuvres.

"These two," Jacob said. "Are part of a cabal whose aim is to undermine the Probation laws. That's the second reason I asked you to come. Something's going to have to be done and Secrets Registration is a better first step than going to the police."

At the mention of the police, LaRoque stopped nibbling at his tiny sandwich. He looked at it then put it down.

"What kind of cabal?" Nielsen asked.

"A society, consisting of Probationers and certain citizen sympathizers, dedicated to the secret manufacture of spaceships . . . spaceships with Probationer crews."

Nielson sat upright. "What?"

"LaRoque is in charge of their astronaut training program. He's also their chief spy. He tried to measure the calibration settings of a Sunship's Gravity Generator. I have the tapes to prove it."

"But why would they want to do such a thing?"

"Why not? It'd be the most powerful symbolic protest imaginable. If I were a Probationer, I'd certainly participate. I'm sympathetic, I don't like the Probation laws one bit.

"But I'm also realistic. As it-stands the Probationers have been made into an underclass. Their psychological problems are a stigma that follows them everywhere: They react in a very human way, they gather together to hate the 'docile and domesticated' society around them.

"They say, 'You Citizens think I'm violent, well then by damn I will be!' Most of the Probationers would never do anything to hurt anybody, whatever their P-tests say. But faced with this stereotype they become what they're reputed to be!"

"That may or may not be true," Nielsen said. "But given the situation as it stands, for Probationers to get access to space ..."

Jacob sighed. "You're right, of course. It can't be allowed to happen. Not yet.

"On the other hand, we can't allow the Feds to whip up public hysteria over this either. It'd just aggravate matters and put off a later, more severe form of rebellion."

Nielsen looked worried. "You aren't going to suggest that the Terragens Council get involved in the Probation laws, are you? Why that'd be suicide! The public would never stand for it!"

Jacob smiled sadly. "That's right, they wouldn't. Even Uncle James would have to recognize that. Today's Citizen won't even consider changing the status of Probationers and as things stand the Terragens has no authority.

"But what is the domain of the Council? Currently it's administration of extrasolar colonies. Eventually it's to include supervision of all extrasolar affairs. And there's where they can meddle in the Probation laws, symbolically at least, without threatening anyone's peace of mind."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Well now I don't suppose you've ever read Aldous Huxley, have you? No? His works were still popular when Helene was brought up, and my cousins and I were . . . required to study some of them in our youth—damned difficult at times; because of the strange period referents, but worth it for the man's incredible insight and wit.

"Old Huxley wrote one piece titled Brave New World..."

"Yes, I've heard of it. Some sort of dystopia, wasn't it?"

"Of a sort. You should read it. There are some uncanny prophecies.

"In that novel he projects a society with some unpalatable aspects but with, all the same, a self-consistency and its own form of honor—akin to the ethics of a hive, but ethics nonetheless. When man's diversity keeps throwing up individuals who don't fit into the conditioned pattern of the society, what do you suppose Huxley's state does with them?"

Nielsen frowned, wondering where this was leading. "In a hivelike state? I'd guess that the deviants were eliminated, killed."

Jacob raised a finger. "No, not quite. The way Huxley presents it, this state has wisdom, of sorts. The leaders are aware that they've set up a rigid system that might fall before some unexpected threat. They realize that the deviants represent a control, a reserve to fall back on in times of trouble, when the race would need all of its resources.

"But at the same time, they can't keep them hanging around, threatening the stability of the culture."

"So what did they do?"

"They banished the deviates to islands. There they were allowed to pursue their own cultural experiments undisturbed."

"Islands, eh?" Nielsen scratched his head. "It is a striking idea. Actually, it's the inverse of what we're already doing with the Extraterrestrial Reserves, exiling the Probies from geographically controllable areas and then allowing E.T.'s in to mingle with the Citizens who come and go at will."

"An intolerable situation," James muttered. "Not only for the Probationers, but for the extraterrestrials, as well. Why, Kant Fagin was just telling me how much he'd like to visit the Louvre, or Agra, or Yosemite!"

"All shall come in time, Friend-James Alvarez," Fagin trilled. "For now I am grateful for the dispensation which enables me to visit this small part of California, an undeserved and extravagant reward."

"I don't know if the islands idea would work that well," Nielsen said thoughtfully. "Of course it's worth bringing up. We can go into all of the ramifications another time. What I'm having trouble figuring out is what this would have to do with the Terragens Council."

"Extrapolate," Jacob urged. "It just might ameliorate the Probationer problem, somewhat, to set up some sort of island Coventry in the Pacific, where they could pursue their own path without the perpetual observation they undergo everywhere today. But it wouldn't be enough. Many Probationers feel that they are emasculated from the start. Not only are their parentage rights limited by law, they are also excluded from the most important adventure mankind has ever undertaken, the expansion into space.

"This little imbroglio LaRoque and James were engaged in is a prime example of the problems we'll face, unless a niche is found for them, so that they can feel they're participating."

"A niche. Islands. Space . . . good lord, man! You can't be serious! Buy another colony and give it over to Probationers? When we're still in hock up to our ears for the three we've got? You must be an optimist if you think that could pass!"

Jacob felt Helene's hand slide into his own. He barely glanced at her, but the expression on her face was enough. Proud, alert, and just on the edge, as ever, of laughter. He twined his fingers with hers to cover the most area, and squeezed back.

"Yes," he said to Nielsen, "I have become somewhat of an optimist, lately. And I think it could be done."'

"But where would we get the credit? And how do you salve the wounded egos of half a billion Citizens who want to colonize, when you're giving space to non-Citizens?

"Hell, colonization wouldn't work anyway. Even the Vesarius II will carry only ten thousand. There are almost a hundred million Probationers!"

"Oh not all of them will want to go, especially if they get a place on the islands as well. Besides, I'm sure all they're looking for is fair treatment. A share. Our real problem is that there's not enough colony room, or transport."

Jacob smiled slowly. "Bat what if we could get the Library Institute to 'donate' the funds for a Class Four, colony, plus a few Orion type transports specially simplified for human crews."

"How do you expect to persuade them to do that? They're obligated to compensate us for Bubbacub's hoax, but they'll want to do it in a way that serves their purposes, like making us totally dependent on Galactic technology. In that they'd be supported by almost every race. What could make them change the form of their reparations?"

Jacob spread his hands. "You forget, we now have something they'll want . . . something very precious that the Library Institute can't do without. Knowledge!" - Jacob reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper.

"This is a ciphered message I received a little while ago from Millie Martine on Mercury. She's still restricted to a chair, but they wanted her back there so badly that they let her travel over a month ago.

"She says that full dives have been resumed in active regions. She's already been down once, in charge of the effort to re-establish contact with the Solarians. So far she's been able to avoid telling the Feds much about what she's found, waiting instead to confer with Fagin and myself.

"Contact has been made. The Solarians talked to her. They are lucid and have a very long memory."

"Incredible," Nielsen sighed. "But I'm getting the impression you think this will have political implications relating to the problems we've discussed here?"

"Think about it. The Library will believe they can force us to take reparations on their terms. But if it's handled right we can blackmail them into giving us what we want instead.

"The fact that the Solarians are talkative and can remember the distant past—Millie hints that they remember dives into the Sun by ancient sophonts, so long ago that they might have been the Progenitors themselves—means that we have found a prize of unprecedented proportions.

"It means that the Library must try to find out everything they can about them. It also means that this discovery will get a great deal of publicity."

Jacob grinned.

"It'll be complicated. First we've got to play to the impression .they already have that Sundiver is one big fiasco. Get them to assign us a Library Investigation Patent to the Sun. They'll imagine it will only make us look more idiotic. When they realize what we have, they'll have to buy it from us at our price!

"We'll need Fagin's help to finesse it properly, plus all of the savvy of the Alvarez clan and the cooperation of you Terragens people, but it can be done. Uncle Jeremy, in particular, will be glad to know that I'm going to dust off my long dormant skills and get involved in 'dirty polities' for a while, to help."

James laughed. "Just wait til your cousins heat! I can see them shuddering already!"

"Well tell them not to worry. No, I'll tell- them myself when Jeremy calls a family council on this. I'm going to make certain that this whole mess is settled within three years. After that I'm retiring from politics, permanently.

"You see, I'll be going on a long trip about then."

Helene let out a small gasp and pressed her fingernails into his thigh. Her expression was indescribable.

"One thing I'm going to insist on," he said to her, wondering if he could, or wanted to, suppress the urge to laugh or the roaring in his ears. "We'll have to find a way to take along at least one dolphin. Her limericks are awfully dirty; but they may buy us supplies in a few ports while we're out there."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DAVID BRIN was born in Southern California in 1950 and attended the California Institute of Technology, where he majored in Astrophysics and History. He has worked as an electrical engineer for Hughes Aircraft Research Labs, and is currently a member of Professor Hannes Alfven's research group at UCSD. He has published several papers on comets. Mr. Brin currently lives in San Diego, California. This is his first book.