Circus Galacticus orbited the dark object. Four hundred million kilometers in diameter, it occulted a good portion of stars from the sky. In the infrared range of the spectrum, though, it glowed dazzlingly bright. The computer launched a flashby probe; an answer returned hours later in the sudden appearance of a kilometers-long spaceship.
The craft transferred in alongside Circus Galacticus and emitted a hailing message on all frequencies. The computer returned the greeting and worked with the other ship on deriving a common language. Only then did it attempt to notify Delia and Virgil. One was unconscious, the other catatonic.
As a plenipotentiary of the Brennen Trust, the computer initiated trade negotiations with the other ship.
Jord Baker opened his eyes to behold Delia huddled sleeping in his arms.
“You… slut!” he hissed.
She opened her eyes, her expression changing from restfulness to fear.
“Hide,” she whispered.
Baker smiled. “It won’t work. I know about it and I’ve been through enough that your post-hypnotics have worn off.”
She tried to push away from him but he wrestled her into the chair and strapped her in.
Something clanked amidships.
Baker picked up the hypogun and filled it with five milliliters of DuoHypno Type II.
“However,” he said, turning toward her. “Maybe I can use your trick to make you cure me.”
She regained enough composure to say, “What was that sound?”
“What?” He held the hypodermic gun to her shoulder.
“That sliding sound.”
“Robots.”
“Computer!” she called. “Status of all ship robots.”
No answer. Baker put the gun back and looked at her. She’s tied up. And something’s going on out there. I’d better check… He went to the hatch and listened. Something scraped across it, then made a chittering noise that receded in the distance.
“Stay right there,” he said to her, listening with his ear against the hatch.
“I can’t go anywhere, you son of a bitch.”
“Shh.” He opened the hatchway and slipped out.
The air smelled of some faint, musky sweet odor. The corridor lights glowed at a far lower level than that to which he was accustomed. Something moved past a hatchway to his right. Something teardrop-shaped and translucent.
White and pale like a ghost. I saw right through it! It just floated-
He employed the handholds to move cautiously down the corridor. He snuck a look around the edge of the hatch and pulled back immediately.
Five of them. What are they?
He drifted silently back to the other corridor and switched on a computer console.
WHAT IS GOING ON? he typed.
PLEASE RESTATE QUESTION came the reply.
“You know what I mean,” he whispered angrily. “What are those things floating around the hall?”
SYSTEMS OPERATING AT MAXIMUM CAPACITY. YOUR QUESTION WILL BE ANSWERED WHEN TIME IS AVAILABLE.
What the hell? “Don’t ignore me, damn you! I’m the human!” When no answer came, he maneuvered down the corridor to the armory and slipped on a laser glove. He headed toward the prow ellipsoid-quietly, carefully.
The same musky smell hung thickly around the ellipsoid. Silver-white strands thinner than silk drifted through the air. They clung at his skin and hair like cobwebs. Charging the laser, he pulled slowly down the passageway to the hold containing the life support system. No ghosts there, either.
He moved on to the next level and the compartments storing the Valliardi transfer equipment. Something hissed. Baker pulled into the crook of a support beam juncture and waited. The hissing grew louder, rising to the level of a stage whisper.
The white form undulated by less than a meter from him. The smell overpowered him when the creature passed; he almost gagged.
Just like a ghost. Balloon head up front and a rippling body behind. Only ghosts don’t stink like oxen or leave spider webs behind them. Aliens, damn it, and I’m the first to see one, but… The transfer!
He moved as fast as he could toward the compartment, took a deep breath, and peered through the open hatchway.
Throughout the room, pale figures floated and darted like jellyfish; a hissing occurred every time one of the creatures started, stopped, or changed direction. Once in motion, though, they were as silent as phantoms. Some grasped large pieces of equipment securely with their snaking bodies. Others gripped tools and incomprehensible devices in hands that were little more than translucent tentacles ending in a burst of fingers, thumbs and smaller tentacles. Their heads, the most opaque part of them, possessed two black dots that must have been eyes, and various slits and openings that roughly corresponded to a nose, ears, and mouth. Openings in the backs of their heads served a purpose of which Baker had no idea.
They worked at a furious pace. They were dismantling the Valliardi Transfer.
Baker raised his hand to point the laser at the most industrious alien. “Sorry, balloonhead,” he whispered. “Diplomacy aside, I can’t let you strand me-”
Some of the creatures turned to look when they heard the crack of steel against Baker’s skull. The others worked on, not interested in the limp, totally opaque body being dragged away by one of the ship’s robots.
“I cannot have either one of you interfere while you are in unstable emotional conditions,” the computer stated flatly.
Baker listened while straining with futile effort at the straps holding him to the bed. Delia sat where he had left her. A robot, cylindrical with a dozen specialized arms, floated between them, on guard. Baker said nothing, merely choosing to stare at the red light below the computer’s vidcam.
“I made contact,” it explained, “with the People of the Sphere shortly after our final transfer, which delivered us to this system. ‘This system’ comprising an aged K-type star surrounded by a Dyson shell and not much else.
“It turns out that I have nothing of value to offer them in the name of the Brennen Trust. Nothing, that is, except two rather flawed examples of living anthro-history. They are keenly interested in anthro-history, and I have agreed to show them Earth. In this regard, they have offered to redesign our transfer device to incorporate improvements from their own devices.”
“You’re showing them to Earth? Just like that? Don’t you know what sort of danger that might put us in?”
“This,” Delia said. “from one who was ready to kill the only human being who could handle the transfer.”
He turned his head toward hers. “I can handle it well enough.” He looked at the computer. “You may be dooming all mankind!”
“You almost did by trying to submerge Virgil.”
“Shut up, Dee!”
The computer said, “I have no emotional attachment to the human race. The People of the Sphere seem quite accustomed to preserving endangered species. No destructive race can create something as vast as a Dyson-type structure. No dictatorship or empire could last long enough to finish such a cooperative effort.”
“In your opinion, programmed by human beings as you were.”
“In my opinion based on the history cores they have been feeding my memory over the past several hours. This is the first opportunity I have had to use even a small amount of random access for anything other than filing new information.”
“Get us out of these things so we can stop them.”
“I regret any trauma I may be causing you, tovar Baker, but I do possess the relevant facts in this matter.” The computer said nothing more.
“I hate you, Jord,” Delia said, quietly.
“I know. Now shut up and let me think of how to save us.”
“Your sudden protective impulse for a planet that died in the Earth-Belt war is simply a rationalization of your senseless urge to kill these innocents!”
“You can stop being a psychoanalyst now.”
“Hide.”
“I told you, bitch, it doesn’t work.” He strained at the straps until the blood thundered in the wound on his bandaged scalp. Relaxing his efforts, he glared at her. “You didn’t see them, Dee. They’re like cartoon spirits, like glass fish. You can see their guts, for God’s sake!”