After having become acquainted with the computer's slight differences and peculiarities, Vinn decided that the Zede machine was not superior in general function to the standard Century series that was in use on U.P.
ships, but it did have minor features that offered him interesting little challenges. In addition to the inaccessible area wherein resided X&A's little black box—the "spy box," as Kara called it—another area of memory was closed off to the noninformed user. It took Vinn five watches to break into the closed file. It listed, defined, and gave operating instructions for the Carmine Rose's weapons system. That in itself was not surprising. The startling thing was that the Rose was even better armed than Vinn had dreamed.
"Pete," Vinn asked as soon as he had opportunity to be alone with de Conde, "did you know that this ship carries two planet busters?"
"Damn, Vinn," Pete said in surprise.
"You didn't?"
Pete scratched his nose.
De Conde's hesitation to answer was revealing. "You did know," Vinn said.
"I'm wondering how in hell you found out," Pete said. He scratched his nose again.
"One of my assignments when I worked on Xanthos was to develop methods to search out hidden files," Vinn said. "And when I'm alone with a computer I lose all self-control and can't keep my hands off it." He grinned, then sobered. "Why the illegal weapons, Pete?"
"It depends on where you are and how you look at the question whether or not they're legal," de Conde said. "Somewhere way to hell and gone out in the big empty where no X&A ship has ever gone there's no one to say they're not allowed."
Vinn knew and he knew that Pete knew that busters were forbidden to any vessel, anywhere. "You haven't told me why you need them," he said.
De Conde looked away. "Well, I suppose a buster could be considered a mining tool under certain circumstances."
"Damn," Vinn said. "I believe you're going to tell me that your company has used them in the past."
"Not lately." Pete grinned. "The last time was about ten years ago. The system was isolated. There was a big, airless moon orbiting a gas giant. It was a useless hunk of rock, except that it had a core of metals so pure that it was almost unnecessary to refine them."
"You blew a moon apart?"
"A lot easier to mine that way," Pete said.
"My God," Vinn said. "If X&A knew— Hell, if they knew that this ship had been within twenty light-years of Xanthos with two busters aboard—"
Pete chuckled. "But they don't." He put his hand on Vinn's arm. "Look, Vinn, we have the tightest security in the galaxy. You take Iain and Kara.
They've been submitted to every psychological test ever devised, and it's our policy to pay key employees enough to make them not just loyal but fanatic. They own shares in the company. They're as solid as people canbe. We damned sure wouldn't want a couple of unstable nuts running around with two busters aboard."
Vinn ran his hand through his hair. "Well, you said this ship would be well armed."
It took Vinn another few watches to puzzle out the complicated firing sequence for the planet busters. The process was even more of a challenge than breaking Kara's code to get into the file in the first place. It helped pass the long hours of charging time. He was working out the last sequence one day when Sarah came into control and looked over his shoulder. She asked questions. At first Vinn hedged, then he decided that she had a right to know.
She paled when he told her. "This ship could destroy a world?" she asked.
"Two of them."
"There are safeguards, of course."
"The firing orders are quite complicated."
"Show me."
"It's not that I don't trust you, Sarah, but one of the safeguards is that it takes both Iain and Kara to arm and fire one of the weapons," he said.
"But you're able to defeat the fail-safes?"
He shrugged. "I've spent a lot of time with these things. I'd say that there aren't more than half a dozen people in the U.P. who could break the entry code and dope out the steps it takes to send one of those things zapping toward a planet." He grinned wryly. "Don't intend to brag. It's just that I think in computerese."
"You could launch one of those things all by yourself?"
"If necessary," he said. "I can't imagine any sequence of events that would cause me to do it, though."
"It gives me the shivers," she said.
"You are not alone," he said, as he overrode the commands that had brought him within three steps of having one of the planet destroying weapons ready to fire. "By the way, if it's all the same to you I'd just as soon Iain and Kara don't know I busted into private areas."
The Carmine Rose made a left turn relating to the plane of the galactic disc and jumped inward to the one permanent blink beacon laid down by the Erin Kenner. There she paused, while those aboard her gathered in the control room and studied the sparse sprinkling of stars that lay within a relatively few light-years.
"Here's where the fun begins," Kara Berol said. "Offhand I'd guess that we have six months' work ahead of us just checking out the nearest stars."
But there was a Webster aboard, and, like Ruth and Sheba before her, Sarah Webster de Conde remembered her mother's shopping habits. So it was that the Carmine Rose followed the same procedures that had led three other ships carrying Websters to the ice planet.
Those who studied the human brain and mind had long since negated the myth of racial memory. The experts were in agreement, however, that the actions and attitudes of a people could be affected by their legends. A
Zedian had, somewhere in his subconscious mind, the semi-memory of dying worlds. Therefore, in unknown space, a Zedian ship's captain, such as Iain Berol, often took precautions that would have made the most meticulous X&A commander seem reckless. As the Rose approached the planet, she bristled with weapons at the ready, and she sent out an electronic cacophony of detection signals.
Kara Berol, at instrument control, pointed out to the others, first of all, the total lack of life signals and electromagnetic radiation from the icy world. This precautionary survey completed, she turned herself to other tests.
"What we have here is a round ice cube with a hot core," she said. "The depth of the ice cover ranges from roughly two hundred feet to several miles in the ocean basins, where the density of the deep ice shows salinity."
Iain, at weapons control, was scanning for metal. "Boss," he said, "I think we'd better file a claim as soon as we can. This one has good ore fields, light metals to heavy."
"Wouldn't that have been the first thought of anyone else who took the same readings?" Vinn asked.
Iain frowned. "To answer that you have to assume that the other ships came here."
Kara was bent over her instrument panel, her fingers busy at the detection station keyboard. Suddenly she straightened. "I think you all had better take a look at this," she said.
She displayed the findings of a surface scan. On the screen the regular pattern of metallic installations extended to the horizons of the world that turned slowly beneath them.
"What we should do, right now, is jump back to the beacons and yell loudly for an X&A alien contact ship," Kara said.
Pete de Conde said, "If I had always done what I should have done, at least according to the rules, I'd still be crunching numbers in an accounting office." He turned to Iain. "There's nothing living down there?
Nothing to indicate any sort of activity?"
"None," Iain said.
Pete took Sarah's hand. "We came out here to find your family," he said. "Do you want to go back now?"
"I don't want to endanger the ship, nor anyone in her," Sarah said.
"I see no harm in taking a few more readings," Vinn said.
"I'm thinking of a share of discoverer's rights when the mining crews go to work out here," Kara said, lighting the room with her happy smile.
"Kara, set us up in a polar orbit so that we'll cover the whole surface,"