“Yes, a calving. We’re very lucky. We’ve only seen this twice before. The shepherds were there both tunes. They appear to assist whenever a torus gives birth. It’s a logical place to start looking for them.
“As for when we get there, that depends on how violent things are between here and there, and how much time-compression we need to get there comfortably. It could be a day. If we’re lucky…” She glanced at the Pilot Board. “… we could be there in ten minutes.”
A crewman stood nearby holding a chart, apparently waiting to see deSilva.
“I’d better go and warn Bubbacub and Dr. Martine to get ready,” Jacob said.
“Yes, that would be a good idea. I’ll make an announcement when I know how soon we’ll arrive.”
As he walked away, Jacob had a strange feeling that her eyes were still on him. It lasted until he passed around the side of the central dome.
Bubbacub and Martine took the news calmly. Jacob helped them pull their equipment boxes to a position near the Pilot Board.
Bubbacub’s implements were incomprehensible, and astounding. Complex, shiny, and multifaceted, one of them took up half of the crate. Its curling spires and glassy windows hinted at mysteries.
Bubbacub laid out two other devices. One was a bulbous helmet apparently designed to fit over the head of a Pil. The other looked like a chunk off of a nickel iron meteoroid, with a glassy end.
“There is three ways to look at psi,” Bubbacub said through his Vodor. He motioned with a four-fingered hand for Jacob to sit. “One is that the psi is just very fine sens-or-y power, to pick out brain waves at long range and de-cinher them. That the thing I will see ab-out with this.” He pointed at the. helmet.
“And this large machine?” Jacob moved to look closer.
“That sees if time and space are be-ing twisted here by the force of a soph-ont’s will. The thins is done; some-times. It sel-dom all-owed. The word is pi-ngrli. You have no word for it. Most, in-eluding hu-mans, do not need to know of it since it is rare.
The Li-brar-y prov-ides these ka-ngrl,” he stroked the side of the machine once, “to each Branch, in case out-laws try to use pi-ngrli.”
“It can counteract that force?”
“Yes.”
Jacob shook his head. It bothered him that there was a whole type of power to which man had no access. A deficiency in technology was one thing. It could be made up in time. But a qualitative lack made him feel vulnerable.
“The Confederacy knows about this… ka-ka…?”
“Ka-ngrl. Yes. I have their leave to take it from Earth. If it is lost, it will be re-placed.”
Jacob felt better then. The machine suddenly looked friendlier. “And this last item… ?” he began to move toward the lump of iron.
“That is a P-is.” Bubbacub snatched it up and put it back in the trunk. He turned away from Jacob and began to fiddle with the brain-wave helmet.
“He’s pretty sensitive about that thing,” Martine said when Jacob came near. “All I could get out of him was that it’s a relic from the Lethani, his race’s fifth high Ancestrals. It dates from just before they ‘passed over’ to another plane of reality.”
The Perpetual Smile broadened. “Here, would you like to see ye olde alchemist’s tools?”
Jacob laughed. “Well, our friend Pil has the Philosopher’s Stone. What miraculous devices have you for mixing effluvium, and exorcising highly caloric ghosts?”
“Besides the normal run-of-the-mill psi detectors, such as they are, there’s not much. A brain-wave device, an inertial movement sensor that’s probably useless in a time-suppression field, a tachistoscopic 3-D camera and projector…”
“May I see that?”
“Sure, it’s at the far end of the trunk.”
Jacob reached in and removed the heavy machine. He laid it on the deck and examined the recording and projecting heads.
“You know,” he said softly. “It’s just possible…”
“What is?” Martine asked.
Jacob looked up at her. “This, plus the retinal pattern reader we used on Mercury, could make a perfect mental proclivities tester.”
“You, mean one of those devices used to determine Probation status?”
“Yes. If I had known this was available back at the base, we could have tested LaRoque then and there. We wouldn’t have had to maser Earth and go through layers of fallible bureaucracy for an answer that might have been tampered. We could have found out his violence index on the spot!”
Martine sat still for a moment Then she looked downward.
“I don’t suppose it would have made any difference.”
“But you were sure there was something wrong with the message from Earth!” Jacob said. “This could save LaRoque from two months in a brig if you were right. Hell, it’s possible he would have been with us right now. We’d be less unsure about the possible danger from the Ghosts, too!”
“But his escape attempt on Mercury! You said he was violent!”
“Panicky violence does not a Probationer make. What’s the matter with you anyway? I thought you were sure LaRoque was framed!”
Martine sighed. She avoided meeting his eyes.
“I’m afraid I was a little hysterical back at the base. Imagine, dreaming up a conspiracy, just to trap poor Peter!
“It’s still hard to believe that he’s a Probationer, and maybe some mistake was made. But I no longer think it was done purposely. After all, who would want to saddle him with the blame for that poor little chimpanzee’s death?”
Jacob stared for a moment, unsure what to make of her change of attitude. “Well,… the real murderer, for one,” he said softly.
Immediately he regretted it.
“What are you talking about?” Martine whispered. She glanced quickly to both sides to be sure that no one was nearby. Both knew that Bubbacub, a few meters away, was deaf to whispered speech.
“I’m talking about the fact that Helene deSilva, much as she probably dislikes LaRoque, thinks it’s unlikely the stunner could have damaged the stasis mechanism on Jeff’s ship. She thinks the crew botched up, but…”
“Well then Peter will be released on insufficient evidence and he’ll have another book to write! We’ll find out the truth about the Solarians and everybody will be happy. Once good relations are established I’m sure it won’t matter much that they killed poor Jeff in a fit of pique. He’ll go down as a martyr to science and all this talk of murder can be ended once and for all. It’s so distasteful anyway.”
Jacob was beginning to find the conversation with Martine distasteful as well. Why did she squirm so? It was impossible to follow a logical argument with her.
“Maybe you’re right,” he shrugged.
“Sure I’m right.” She patted his hand and then turned to the brain-wave apparatus. “Why don’t you go look for Fagin. I’m going to be busy here for a while and it’s possible he doesn’t know about the calving yet.”
Jacob nodded once and got to his feet. As he crossed the gently quivering deck he wondered what strange things his suspicious other half was thinking. The blurt about a “real murderer” worried him.
He met Fagin where the photosphere filled the sky in all directions, like a great wall. In front of the treelike Kanten, the filament in which they rode spiraled down and away into red dissipation. To the left and right and far below, spicule forests wriggled like effervescent rows of elephant grass.
For a time they watched together in silence.
As a waving tendril of ionized gas drifted past the ship, Jacob was reminded for the nth time of kelp floating in the tide.
Suddenly he had an image. It made him smile. He imagined Makakai, wearing a waldo-suit of cermet and stasis, plunging and leaping among these towering fountains of swirling flame, and diving, in her shell of gravity, to play among the children of this, the greatest ocean.