First to pass through the shortcut were some of the gravity buoys, then, at last, the baby itself touched it. The point began to swell, widening, enveloping the darmat, lips of purple lightning surrounding, then engulfing, the giant black sphere. Jag wondered what was going through the darmat’s mind during the passage, assuming it was still alive.
And if it was alive, and did at some point regain whatever passed for consciousness, then, Jag wondered, what if it panicked? What if it was unable to make sense out of being partly in one sector of space and partly in another? It might grind its own passage to a halt. If the beast were to expire there, halfway through the shortcut, there might be no way to dislodge it. The shortcut opening formed a tight seal around the passing body, so no coordination of the use of gravity generators on both sides would be possible. And that would mean that the Rumrunner and the PDQ might be trapped forever here, out on the edge of the Perseus arm, tens of thousands of light-years from any of the home-worlds.
The darmat was deforming a bit as it moved through the opening, the shortcut’s periphery clamping down on it. Such clamping was normal, and the effect on rigid spaceships was negligible, but the darmat was mostly gas—exotic, luster-quark gas to be sure, but still gas. Jag feared the baby would be cleaved in two—similar to the normal birthing process, but possibly fatal when done unexpectedly. But it seemed the creature’s core was sufficiently solid to prevent the shortcut from pinching all the way through.
At last, the darmat completed its passage. The shortcut collapsed down to its normal dimensionless existence. Jag wanted Longbottle to immediately dive through the shortcut so that they could see the result of all their efforts. But they, and Melondent aboard the PDQ, had to wait for hours to be sure the darmat had moved far enough from the shortcut so that a collision—or just tidal stress from its enormous gravity—wouldn’t destroy their ships when they popped through to the other side.
At last, after a probe had indicated it was safe to go through, Longbottle programmed the computer to take them home. The Rumrunner moved forward. The shortcut swelled, and they passed through to the other side.
It took Jag a few moments to take in all that he was seeing. The baby was there, all right. And so was Starplex. But Starplex was surrounded on all sides by darmats, and the ship itself looked dead, all the lights in its windows dark.
Chapter XXIV
The shortcut point began to expand, starting as a violet pinprick of Soderstrom radiation, and growing as an ever-expanding purple ring. First to pop through was one of Starplex’s hastily constructed antigravity buoys, and then another and another. They zoomed across the sky like bullets. They’d been tugging the darmat baby, but since they came through the portal before it did, they were severed from its mass and so shot ahead. Soon, though, the bulk of the darmat baby began its passage, bulging out through the ring of purple in the sky.
On Starplex’s bridge Thorald Magnor let loose a great cheer, and it was echoed by hundreds of others from all over the ship, as everyone watched the spectacle either through a window or on a viewscreen.
Cat’s Eye and a dozen other adult darmats moved closer to the shortcut, calling out to the baby. Over the bridge speakers, PHANTOM played a translation of what Cat’s Eye was saying, but many of the words were missing; the leader of the darmats was not limiting his vocabulary to the few hundred words Rissa and Hek had learned. “Come forward… forward… toward… you are… we… come… hurry… do not… forward… forward.”
Rhombus was using the deck-one array to monitor the emerging baby, but so far it hadn’t transmitted a word of its own, at least not on any frequency even close to the twenty-one-centimeter band.
Lianne Karendaughter was shaking her head. “It’s not moving at all under its own volition,” she said. “It must be dead.”
Keith ground his teeth together. If it was dead, all this was for nothing. “It’s possible,” he said, at last, trying as much to convince himself as Lianne, “that a single darmat can’t move on its own. They may need to play off each other’s gravity and repulsion. The baby may not yet be far enough out for that.”
“Forward,” said Cat’s Eye. “Forward… come you… forward.”
Keith had never heard of anyone trying so slow a passage through a shortcut before—there was an unspoken sense that one should hurry through, that to tarry would be tempting fate, lest the magic of the thing fail.
At last the baby completed its passage. The shortcut collapsed, although, moments later, it opened slightly several times as additional antigrav buoys popped through from the other side.
The darmat child was moving away from the shortcut, but only under momentum. It had not yet—
“Where… where…”
Still a French-accented voice, but, in a stroke of rare creativity, PHANTOM had chosen a child’s tones for this translation.
“Home… back…”
Thor let loose another thunderous cheer. “It’s alive!”
Keith found his eyes misting over. Lianne was openly crying.
“It’s alive!” Thor shouted again.
The darmat baby did, finally, begin to move, heading toward Cat’s Eye and the others.
The speakers changed back to the voice PHANTOM had assigned to Cat’s Eye. “Cat’s Eye to Starplex,” it said.
Keith keyed his mike. “Starplex responding,” he said.
Cat’s Eye was quiet longer than the round-trip signal time would have required, as if he was searching for a way to express what he wanted to say using the limited vocabulary available. Finally, simply, he said, “We are friends.”
Keith felt himself grinning from ear to ear. “Yes,” he said. “We are friends.”
“The child’s vision is damaged,” said Cat’s Eye. “It will… become equal to one again, but time is required. Time, and absence of light. Green star is bright; not here when child left.”
Keith nodded. “We can build another shield, to protect the baby from the green star’s light.”
“More,” said Cat’s Eye. “You.”
Keith was momentarily puzzled. “Oh—of course. Lianne, kill all our running lights, and, after warning people, douse the lights in all rooms with windows. If people want to put their lights back on, tell them to draw the shades first.”
Lianne’s beautiful face was split by a wide smile. “Doing so.”
Starplex went dark, and the darmat community moved toward the great ship and their newly returned child.
The Rumrunner popped through the shortcut, followed moments later by the PDQ. Radio communication soon assured their crews that Starplex was all right, and the ships curved in toward the docking bays. As soon as the Rumrunner was safely aboard, Jag headed for the bridge.
Keith was still talking to Cat’s Eye when Jag entered the bridge. The director turned to the Waldahud. Thank you, Jag. Thank you very much.”
Jag nodded his head, accepting the comment.
The voice of Cat’s Eye came over the speakers. “We to you an incorrect,” he said.
A wrong, thought Keith. They did us wrong.
“You into point that is not a point had to move with high speed.”