Babnol was trembling slightly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m very sorry.”
Toroca saw how upset she was, and how very afraid. He wanted to move closer, to comfort her, but knew that that would frighten her even more. Finally, softly, he said, “I know.”
She lifted her muzzle, tried to meet his eyes. “And what happens now?”
“When this Antarctic expedition is over, we will return briefly to Capital City for provisions and so that I can report to Novato. After that, we will go back to the shore of Fra’toolar.”
“But I thought we were finished there?”
“We were finished,” spat Toroca, but he immediately reigned in his tone. “We were. But now we have to go back and search and search and search until we find another artifact. And you, Babnol, here, with the sun burning above your head, you must now pledge your loyalty to the cause, your loyalty to the Geological Survey, your loyalty to me, or I will have no choice but to have you left behind in Capital City. I need you, Babnol, and I—I want you, to be part of my team. But there must be no repetition of this. We’re growing up fast, Babnol—as a race, I mean. We have to leave behind the fears of our childhood. Pledge your loyalty.”
She lifted her left hand, claws extended on her second and third finger, fingers four and five spread out, her thumb pressed against her palm: the ancient Lubalite salute of loyalty.
“I see,” said Toroca, his voice not bitter, “that you noticed more than just the object when you searched my quarters.” He nodded after a moment. “I accept your pledge of loyalty.” A pause. “Back to your knot-tying, Babnol, but while you do it, pray.”
“Pray?” she said.
He nodded. “Pray that the object was not one of a kind.”
Being cooped up on a ship was enough to make almost any Quintaglio edgy. Except on pilgrimage voyages, ships rarely sailed far from the coastline of Land, and they would put in to shore every few days so that those aboard could hunt.
The journey to the south polar cap had been a long one, with no stopovers. It was time to release the energy and emotions that had built up during the voyage. It was time for a hunt.
The divers were by far the most common lifeform on the cap, but they were by no means the only one. Several other creatures had been glimpsed through the far-seer. That was fortunate, for a diver was much too small to make a proper meal for one Quintaglio, let alone a hungry pack.
Delplas’s tail was swishing over the Dasheter’s deck in anticipation. “Ah, to hunt again,” said the surveyor. “At last! My claws have been itching for dekadays.” Each word appeared as a puff of white vapor. She turned to Toroca, who was leaning against the railing around the edge of the ship. “Surely you’ll join us on this hunt, Toroca. Even you must be ready for one now.”
Toroca looked down over the edge, watched tiny pieces of ice bumping together in the gray water. “No, thank you.”
“But it’s been ages! It’s high time for a hunt.”
“I wish you every success,” said Toroca, turning to face Delplas.
“We’ve known each other for kilodays,” said Delplas, “and still I don’t understand you.”
Toroca was thinking of Babnol. “Does one ever really understand another?”
Delplas shook her head. “You know what I mean.” She turned her muzzle to directly face Toroca. “You’ll kill an animal whose anatomy you’re curious about, but you hate to kill your own food.”
“I kill the specimens as painlessly as possible,” Toroca replied. “In the hunt, animals die in agony.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Delplas. “After all, your father is Afsan.”
“Yes.”
“The greatest hunter of all time.”
Toroca turned back to looking over the ship’s railing. “Afsan hasn’t hunted for—what?—sixteen kilodays,” he said softly.
“Well, of course,” replied Delplas, exasperated. “He’s blind.”
Toroca shrugged. “Even before that, he only hunted once or twice.”
“But what hunts! The biggest thunderbeast ever known. Aboard this very ship, that serpent, Kal-ta-goot! And even a fangjaw. They talk about his kills still.”
“Yes,” said Toroca. “Still.”
“He was The One: the hunter foretold by Lubal.”
“Perhaps.”
“By not hunting, you dishonor your father.”
Toroca swung around, leveling a steady gaze at Delplas. “Don’t talk to me about duty to my father. Duty to one’s parents is a subject about which you and everyone else know nothing.”
Toroca strode away, his feet, clad in insulated shoes, slapping the deck like thunderclaps. Delplas simply stood there, inner eyelids batting up and down.
*24*
The Jijaki traveled along my star lanes.
Not only is this particular iteration of the universe unwelcoming of life, it’s also rigidly opposed to high-speed travel. I tried to predict what forms of interstellar voyaging would be possible for whatever lifeforms arose here. The kinds of nuclear reactions that occur in this universe seemed to hold possible answers. Still, carrying fuel over long distances is always a problem. It would be so much easier if the fuel could be collected along the way.
A ramjet could use an electromagnetic field to gather up interstellar hydrogen to be burned in a nuclear-fusion reactor. In theory, a ship so propelled could reach velocities near that of light, the speed cap in this creation. Unfortunately, for it to work one would need an average density of usable hydrogen particles about ten thousand times greater than what existed in normal space. And, as if that weren’t bad enough, the majority of the interstellar hydrogen in this universe was in the form of protium, an isotope that can undergo fusion only through a nuclear catalytic cycle within the core of stars.
However, having bound my being to the dark matter, I had some trifling control over gravity. Over a period of millions of years, I attracted more hydrogen into corridors connecting the Crucible’s sun and the Jijaki sun, and between the Crucible’s sun and stars that I had selected as transplantation targets. I built up ribbons of suitable density. Along these paths, and these paths alone, would hydrogen-ramscoop fusion starships be able to travel.
A ramscoop needs to be very strong. The strength of the electromagnetic field used to attract the interstellar hydrogen would cause even a starship made of diamond to collapse, and the hull must be immune to erosion by interstellar dust grains. Ah, but once I’d spelled out the problems for them, my Jijaki proved clever, devising a blue material they called kiit that exceeded by a hundred times the strength of diamond. Kiit, which could be injection-molded like plastic until it crystallized, became a common building material.
Was I unfair to the Jijaki, paving roads only where I wanted them to go? I don’t think so. They wished to find other life, and I rolled out a pathway lor them. They longed to travel to the stars, and I made that possible for them, with journeys lasting only a single one of their infinitesimal lifetimes.
The Crucible was a glorious world, green and blue, with stunning white clouds and vast oceans. At the time I plucked the ancestors of the Jijaki from here, all the land was concentrated into a single mass. Now it had broken up, and separate continents had begun to drift apart.