A boyhood incident came to mind. He had discovered—independently, so far as he could discern later—that A squared plus B squared equaled C squared. He had been excited till he had explained it to a friend. The friend had laughed and told him that Pythagoras had crossed the finish line thirty-five hundred years ahead of him.
He felt the same deflation now.
"I hear you and Amy broke up."
"Yes. I didn't realize you knew."
"She called yesterday. She was very depressed about it."
"She took something personal that wasn't."
"That was the feeling I got. Her story was one-sided, but I got the impression you were trying to do what was right for everybody."
"I tried. I don't know how successful I was."
"You two shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place. Landsmen and Seiners don't speak the same language. I've been with them thirty-six years and I still have problems."
"We were both looking for something. We were too eager to grab it."
"I've been through that, too."
"Help her, will you? I never meant to hurt her."
"I will. And don't feel so guilty. She's more resilient than she pretends. She likes the attention."
"I thought you were friends."
"She was a lot more than a friend for a while, Captain. Till she met Heinrich Cortez."
"Oh."
"Hey, Tommy!" Mouse bore down on them like a mini-juggernaut. "Come here." He about-turned and steamed a reverse course.
"Excuse me, Consuela." He chased Mouse down. "What?"
Mouse stopped. "I just talked to a gal who's doing the same thing for the Fishers that we're doing for Beckhart. She was pissed. These clowns, some of them, have been here for ten days. The Fishers have eight thousand people down already. And they haven't even started looking at weapons systems. They don't even care. All they want to do is collect broken toothbrushes and sort old bones."
"They'll get to it, Mouse. You've got to give them a chance to let the new wear off. And they've got to get a dialogue going with the master control. If they manage that, it'll save time. In the long run. The machine can redesign the weapons for us. That would save ripping the old ones out of here, orbiting them, then building ships around them."
Mouse calmed himself. "Okay. Maybe you're right. But I still don't like to see everybody doing something else when weapons are the reason we're all here."
"What if the weapons technology requires other preexisting technologies?"
"What do you mean?"
"Go back a hundred years. Build me a pulse-graser with the technology available then. You couldn't do it. You'd have to create the technology to create the technology to construct the pulse accumulators. Right?"
"Sometimes I don't like you a whole lot, Tommy." Mouse grinned. "I'll tell the Seiner lady to be patient."
"If the Captains will excuse me?" The senior of their Marine custodians approached them.
"Yes, Sergeant?" Thomas asked.
"The Admiral's compliments, sirs, and he needs you back aboard ship immediately."
"What is it?"
"He didn't say, sir. He said to tell you it's critical."
Mouse looked puzzled. McClennon was very much so.
The news hit the busy chamber before they departed.
The starfish had had a brief skirmish with sharks. Hordes of the predators had appeared. A continuous stream were still arriving.
"Holy shit!" Thomas said. "I'd forgotten about them."
"They didn't forget us," Mouse grumbled. "Damnation!"
People swirled this way and that. The mood approached panic. Doctor Chancellor rushed over. "I heard you're going up. Take this to the Admiral, just in case." He shoved a folder into McClennon's hands. "Thank you." He dashed toward the team working at the computer. They were trying to prepare an instantaneous shutdown of the round-robin should the sharks attack.
"They should tell the idiot box to scrub the problem for them," Mouse said as they pulled away. "What did he give you?"
"His notes. They look like a cross between a journal and regular scientific notation."
"Give me some of those."
Their driver flew around worse than he had coming the other direction.
"Here's an interesting one," Mouse said. "No furniture."
"What?"
"The exploration teams haven't found any furniture. There goes your pyramid theory."
"He's right. I didn't see anything but machinery. The bodies are all laid out on the floor."
"Maybe they're invaders too?"
McClennon shrugged. "Here's one that will grab you. How big do you think Stars' End is?"
"Uhm... Venus size?"
"Close. Earth minus two percent. But the planetary part is smaller than Mars. The rest is edifice."
"What?"
"His word. I'll give you the question. Since most of the structural volume would be hollow, how come the place has so much gravity? It's a couple points over Earth normal."
Mouse sneered. "Come on, Tommy. Maybe it's the machines."
"Nope. You're going to love it. According to this, the builders, before they started building, took a little planet and polished it smooth. Then they plated it with a layer of neutronium. The fortress structure floats around on the neutronium, which may be a cushion against tectonic activity."
"Whoa!" Mouse clung to the truck as its driver made a violent turn. "How did they stabilize the neutronium?"
"Figure that out, and how they mined it in the first place, and you and me will get rich."
"What's the kicker?"
"He doesn't have one here. I think it's implied. I didn't see anything at the Lunar digs or Three Sky that would suggest that level of technology."
"So the little people are interlopers. Just like us."
"Maybe." McClennon had an image of Bronze Age barbarians camped in the street of a space age city.
"Keep talking. I don't want to think about the fly up."
A Navy Lieutenant awaited them at Marathon's ingress lock. "If you'll follow me, sirs?"
The Admiral awaited them on the bridge. "Ah. Thomas. I was beginning to wonder."
"Is it critical, sir? We haven't slept for ages."
"It's critical. But the Seiners say it doesn't look like it'll break right away. Rest up good before you go over."
"Over?"
"I'm sending you to Danion. I want you to go into link and give Assyrian and Prussian a fire control realtime."
"You have got to be kidding."
"Why? My calculations show them capable of cleaning up that little mess out there. It's a chance to show Gruber what can happen if he gets tricky."
"Point. Sir, you're over-optimistic. Sharks are super deadly. They throw anti-hydrogen when they get mad. Second point. Why me? A Seiner mindtech could do the job, and probably better. They're better trained."
"I want you. I don't want some Seiner who'll adjust the data to make us look bad."
"I have to go?"
"It's an order."
"Then make it another ship. I'm liable to get lynched aboard Danion."
"Danion is Gruber's choice. That's the ship we know. He has secrets too."
"Thanks a lot. Sir."
Mouse stage-whispered, "The ship's Legal Officer would back you if you want to refuse. You don't have to work when you're under arrest."
"I got troubles enough without getting the Old Man mad at me. Madder at me."
Beckhart glared at Mouse. "You're going with him, son. Head bodyguard. Take your two Marines. Tommy, if it will make you more comfortable, stay with the Psych people till time to go."
"I will."
Danion had not changed—except there were no friendly faces aboard now. Amy met them at the ingress lock. A squad of grim-faced Security people accompanied her. She installed the party aboard a convoy of small vehicles.
People spat and cursed as they passed.