Vardia, of course, never joined in the games and stories—they were things beyond her conception. She kept asking why they played card games since the only practical purpose of games was to develop a physical or mental skill. The concept of gambling, of playing for money, meant even less to her—her people didn’t use the stuff, and only printed it for interplanetary trade. The government provided everyone with everything they needed equally, so why try to get more?
Brazil found her logic, as usual, baffling. All his life he had been compulsively competitive. He was firmly convinced of his uniqueness in the universe and his general superiority to it, although he was occasionally bothered by the universe’s lack of appreciation. But she remained inquisitive and continued asking all those questions two cultures could never answer for each other.
“You promised days ago to show me the bridge,” she reminded him one day.
“So I did,” he acknowledged. “Well, now’s as good a time as any. Why don’t we go all the way forward?”
They made their way from the aft lounge, along the great catwalk above the cargo.
“I don’t mean to pry,” he said to her as they walked along, “but, out of curiosity, is your mission of vital importance?”
“You mean war or peace, something like that?” Vardia responded. “No, very few are like that. The truth is, as you may know, I have no knowledge of the messages I carry. They are blocked and only the key from our embassy on Coriolanus can unlock whatever I’m supposed to say. Then the information will be erased, and I will be sent home, with or without a message in return. But, from the tone or facial expressions of those who give me the messages, I can usually tell if it’s serious, and this one certainly is not.”
“Possibly something to do with the cargo,” Brazil speculated as they entered the wardroom and walked through it this time and out onto another, shorter catwalk. The great engines which maintained the real-universe field of force around them throbbed below. “Do you know how bad things are on Coriolanus?”
She shrugged. “Not too bad, I understand. No widespread famine yet. That will happen months from now, when the harvest doesn’t come in because the rains didn’t come last season and the ground is too hard. Then this cargo will be needed. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, just curious, I guess,” he responded, an odd and slightly strained tone in his voice.
They entered the bridge.
Vardia was immediately all over it, like an anxious schoolchild. “What’s this?” and “How’s that work?” and all the other questions poured from her. He answered as best he could.
She marveled over the computer. “I have never seen one that you must write to and read,” she told him with the awe reserved for genuine historical antiques. He decided not to respond that people these days were too mechanical for him so he couldn’t bear to have a real mechanical person around, but instead he replied, “Well, it’s what you get used to. This one’s just as modern and efficient as any other; I tried it on and can handle it easier. Although I have little to do, in an emergency I have to make thousands of split-second decisions. It’s better to use what you can use instinctively in such a situation.”
She accepted his explanation, which was partially the truth, and noticed his small library of paperback books with their lurid covers. He asked her if she knew how to read and she said no, whatever for? Certain professions on her world required the ability to read, of course, but very few—and if that wasn’t required, as it certainly wasn’t for her job as a reel of blank recording tape, she could see no reason to learn.
He wondered if somewhere they simply had a single Vardia Diplo program, and they read it out, erased the whole thing, then rerecorded it for each trip. Probably, he decided—otherwise, she would have seen bridges before and encountered enough alien culture not to ask those naive questions. Most likely she was just new. It was tough to tell if her kind was fourteen or forty-four.
At any rate, he was glad she couldn’t read. He had suffered a very unsettling moment when she had gone over to that computer and he had noticed that he had forgotten to turn off the screen.
The computer had been spewing its usual every-half-hour warning to him.
unauthorized course correction, it said. this is not a justified action. course is being plotted and will be broadcast to confederacy as soon as destination is reached.
And she wondered why he didn’t have the talking kind of computer.
And so they continued on the new course, all but Brazil and the computer oblivious to their real destination.
A stroke of genius, he congratulated himself after Vardia had left. The courier’s answers had eased his conscience on Coriolanus. They would get their grain—just late. In the meantime, Hain would continue to give Wu Julee the sponge, until that day came when they arrived over the sponge world itself. There he would lose two passengers—Wu Julee would have life, and Hain would be introduced to the colony as a pusher.
Brazil didn’t think any Admiralty Board in the galaxy would convict him; besides, he already had the largest number of verbal and written reprimands in the service. Vardia, though, would never understand his reasoning.
A loud, hollow-sounding gong brought him out of his satisfied reverie. It reverberated throughout the ship. Brazil jumped up and looked at the computer screen.
distress signal field intercepted, it read. await instructions.
Seeing what the message was, he first flipped off the gong then flipped on the intercom. His three passengers were all concerned, naturally.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he told them. “It’s just a distress field. A ship or some small colony is having problems and needs help. I will have to answer the call, so we’ll be delayed a bit. Just sit tight and I’ll keep you informed.”
With that he turned to the computer, giving it the go-ahead to plot the coordinates of the signal. He didn’t like the idea at all—the signal had to be coming from a place far off his approved course. That invited premature discovery. Nonetheless, he could never ignore such a signal. Similar ones had saved him too many times, and the odds of anybody else intercepting it were more astronomical than his own odds at happening on it.
The ship’s engines moaned, then the throbbing that was a part of his existence subsided to a dull sound as the energy field around the ship merged into normal space.
The two screens suddenly came on with the real, not the fake, galaxy—and a planet. A big one, he noted. Rocky and reddish in the feeble light of a dwarf star.
He asked the computer for coordinates. Its screens were blank for a long time, then it replied, dalgonia, star arachnis, dead world, markovian origin, no other information. uninhabited, it added needlessly. It was plain that nothing he knew could live here.
plot distress coordinates and magnify when done, he ordered, and the computer searched the bleak panorama, quadrant by quadrant. Finally it stopped on one area and put it under intense magnification.
The picture was grainy, snowy as hell, but the scene clearly showed a small camp. Something just didn’t look right.
Brazil parked the ship in a synchronous orbit and prepared to go down and see what was wrong. But first, he flipped on the intercom again.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to seal you aft,” he told his passengers. “I have to check out something down on the planet. If I don’t return within eight standard hours, the ship will automatically pull out and take you to Coriolanus at top speed, so you needn’t be worried.”
“Can I come with you?” Vardia’s voice came back at him.