“Look at their cargo containers,” Hwang added, pointing back toward the waist of the craft. “Like something bees would build.”
Instead of the heavily built cargo frames and docking cradles of human shift carriers, the Slaasriithi craft used various permutations upon honeycombs and hexagons. The keel was, itself, a cluster of hexagonal shafts: it was as if the Giant’s Causeway of Ireland had been reformed into a kilometer-long pole. Shorter hexagonal sections, probably cargo containers, were affixed along its length, reprising the keel’s own shape. The sections were subdivided into segments, each juncture joined and reinforced by a substance akin to the composite, which had extruded from the hull to deploy the half-donut rotational habitats. And aft, where a human ships’ drives, power plants and even fuel tanks tended to accrue in boxy agglomerations, the Slaasriithi ship was distinguished by symmetric clusters of spheres, all seamless and perfect.
“It doesn’t look real,” Riordan murmured.
“Yes,” Downing agreed. “It has a rather impressionist feel to it. Something Magritte might have imagined.”
Hwang was smiling. “I wonder what our ships must look like to them?”
“Great angular monstrosities,” Sukhinin pronounced, then pointed. “This should be interesting.”
Caine and the others followed the vector implied by his index finger. The tug carrying Caine’s and Ben’s hab mod was approaching the bow of the Slaasriithi ship, cruising slowly past the fat silver toruses.
Halfway toward the large silver sphere at the bow, one of the smaller spheres began moving out from the keel. The tug angled sharply towards it, maneuvered so that the human hab mod — a comparatively inelegant tin can — was poised next to the aft surface of the sphere. It held that position.
Caine scanned the rest of the Slaasriithi ship: no other motion. No ROVs or other craft were on their way to help with the attachment of the module — which was looking damned near impossible.
Until Ben Hwang chuckled. “Well, that’s an odd way to dock a module.” He pointed.
Six small, equally spaced extrusions were emerging from the rear of the sphere, reaching to make contact with the hab mod.
Caine stared. “Is it growing the docking interface?”
Hwang frowned. “I don’t think it’s growing, at least not the way we’d mean it. But it seems the Slaasriithi have materials that synergize mechanical and biological properties. Look: those extrusions resemble the racks holding their cargo tubes in place: six parallel ribs projecting backward from the vertices of a hexagon, with secondary extrusions stretching between them. When they’re done, they will have woven a basket around our hab mod.”
Sukhinin nodded, stood away from the gallery window. “We are nearing the point where we shall release your transfer module to a Slaasriithi tug, and I am thirty minutes overdue for my final conference with Consul Visser. Doctor, Caine: I wish you the best of luck and safe travels. Richard, you shall continue to brief me on local intelligence matters during our return trip?”
“I’ll be right behind you, Vassily.” As Sukhinin exited, Downing turned to Riordan and Hwang. “Well, chaps, I can’t say I envy you.”
Caine hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “You mean because we’re sailing off into the great unknown on the SS Magritte?”
Richard smiled. “Well, that too. But truth be told, I was thinking of traveling with Gaspard. Beastly duty, that.”
Hwang smiled. “I’m sure we shall manage.” He put out a hand. “Safe travels home, Richard.”
As Downing shook Hwang’s hand, Caine found himself unable to keep thoughts of “home” under the tight control he had exerted since being roused from cold sleep only seventy-two hours earlier. Images of Elena Corcoran — and their son, Connor — displaced what his eyes were showing him. “I’d like to get home, too. Pick up where I left off with Elena. Start being a father to Connor.” Pushing aside the sudden homesickness, Caine stuck out his hand as well, did not care, at least momentarily, that Richard Downing hardly deserved a fond farewell from him.
But when Caine mentioned the lover and son he had left behind, Richard glanced away quickly, feigned interest in the now fully loaded — or would that be encysted? — habitation module. “They’ll be ready to launch your transfer module any minute now.” He let his eyes graze briefly across Riordan’s. “Safe travels, Caine.”
If Downing had left the room any more quickly, his stroll would have qualified as a trot.
“Odd,” observed Ben Hwang. “I wonder what troubled him?”
Caine shrugged. “His conscience, probably.”
“Yes, but why just now?”
Caine said nothing, but silently agreed: yes, why just now?
The almost mythological outlines of the Slaasriithi shift carrier loomed before them as they awaited the two-minute warning to board the transfer module that would convey them to the alien ship.
PART TWO. June — September 2120
Chapter Fifteen. NEAR GAS GIANTS ALL SYSTEMS FROM V 1581 TO GJ 1248
The bridge of the Arbitrage was packed tight with the Lurkers’ crew. Only the two low-breed aspirants to Elevation, Jesel and Suzruzh, were absent, ensuring that the Aboriginals remained locked in their quarters. Nezdeh rose into the microgravity. “We have finalized our plans.” She nodded toward Idrem.
He activated his beltcom’s projector: eight wire-thin arms emerged from the top of the unit. A moment later, a crude, semi-flat holograph was floating a meter above it. The image was a stylized Aboriginal graphic depicting the refueling operations of the Arbitrage. “Attend. This ship was to conduct two to three more days of fuel harvesting here at V 1581.4. It was then scheduled to break orbit and head for its prearranged shift point to Sigma Draconis, here.” Idrem gestured toward a pulsing cross-hairs symbol, far beyond the heliopause. “It would have taken them five weeks to reach this point at an approximate velocity of zero point two cee: a total of thirty-eight days from now. Keeping to that schedule would prevent the Aboriginals in this system from suspecting that the Arbitrage has been seized.
“However, we may no longer do so.” Idrem brought up a schematic of the shift-carrier. “In addition to minor damage that our attacks inflicted upon this hull’s fuel handling capacity, we also destroyed one of the tanker/tenders when the Aboriginals attempted to ram us with it.”
Tegrese frowned. “So the Aboriginals back at the second planet will detect and inspect this refueling delay.”
“They would notice it eventually, but we will be sure to report it before then.”
Zurur Deosketer sounded skeptical. “Will the Aboriginals trust a report that does not come from the captain of record?”
Brenlor smiled. “No, but fortunately, the Aboriginal captain will make the report.”
“The Aboriginal captain is dead.”
“His voice is not.”
Idrem expanded upon Brenlor’s response. “The Aboriginals record all communiqués. So, once we have recalibrated the comm array on the Red Lurker to emulate the Arbitrage’s, we shall send a damage report and revised mission timeline using edited clips of the voice of the dead captain. The Aboriginal force back at Planet Two will have questions. But given the transmission delay of almost twenty minutes, it will not seem unusual that some other member of the command staff would answer. Accordingly, Kozakowski will reply as we instruct.”