She was looking at it now with full attention. "There was nothing like that on any of the spacecraft I learned on," she said, sounding almost apprehensive.
"Of course there wasn't. There is no need for such things here, because there are no aligned systems here in the Core—other, of course, than the Core itself. None were brought in from the external galaxy at the time of the Withdrawal. For that reason, none of our newer spacecraft have anything of this sort, except for the very few scoutcraft that patrol the outside galaxy from time to time. This particular spacecraft is quite old, you know. It is in excellent condition, certainly, or else it would not have been given the important task of supplying Door, but it happens to have been built before our ancestors migrated here. There is much history in this spacecraft, Breeze. It is likely that when it was new this order disrupter you see before you penetrated many a Schwarzschild"—he didn't use the word "Schwarzschild," of course, but what he was talking about was the light-trapping shell around a black hole that humans called by that term— "penetrated many a Schwarzschild barrier in the days before the Withdrawal. The system was left intact, as you see it there, simply because there was no reason to remove it. In any case," he went on, "I'm glad our ship still has it installed. Every student pilot should learn how this model of the order disrupter works—in case, you know, a time when it might be of value should ever come."
He watched her expression approvingly. There was no further sign of nervousness, though the mere thought of breaking through the perimeters of the enormous black hole they lived in was still scary for any Heechee. Then, practically, "Now let us recheck the stowage of our cargo."
She shrugged assent and touched the viewer controls. The first icons that appeared represented tanks of liquid atmospheric gases— replenishments for Door's air supply; the station was nearly gas-tight but there was always some leakage. Other icons represented personal effects for Door's permanent party, still others water and fuel. Breeze reported: "They are all secure, Achiever. Do you want anything else checked?"
Achiever touched his fingertips to his thin lips—it was the equivalent of a yawn. "I think not, not right now. However, since there are two of us, I suggest that one of us should remain in the control chamber at all times."
Breeze looked perplexed. "Is that necessary, Achiever?"
"Necessary? Perhaps not, but it is what I wish." He was pleased to see that that settled the matter for her; she would be a credit to him as his first student. He went on, "I will take the first shift, Breeze. You may wish to sleep, or to make yourself a meal—our food manufactury is quite good. Or perhaps you would like to avail yourself of the ship's library. I have chosen the library's fans personally, and I think you will find enjoyable reading there. Which would you prefer?"
Breeze considered for a moment, then said, "I would like best, Achiever, simply to stay here and watch you for a time. How else am I to learn?"
She could not have chosen a better response. Achiever was once again well pleased with his trainee, and remained so throughout his shift. There was little enough for her to watch, of course. The ship flew itself. But while Achiever himself was reading, or eating, or chatting with his student, he always kept one eye on the screen, just in case, and Breeze was suitably impressed.
Later on, when it was Achiever's resting time, he crawled into his bundle of sleeping grasses—they weren't real grasses, of course, because real vegetation might release pollens that would pollute the spacecraft's air, but they were manufactured to look and feel as much like grass as anything the primitive forebears of the Heechee race had plucked and wrapped around themselves when they found a moment to rest. Achiever didn't let the grasses cover his face, though. He kept his eyes on Breeze. She was doing well, he thought with satisfaction.
And continued to think so through the next shift, and the next.
It wasn't until they were almost at their destination that anything happened to worry him. He was in his sleeping bundle, this time really asleep, when the urgent-message bell rang.
Well, it wasn't a bell and it didn't ring, it growled. But no matter. Its sound meant that something somewhere was very amiss. It had never sounded before in Achiever's experience, and he was fighting his way out of his sleep bundle almost before it stopped. Even so, Breeze was before him. The communicator had begun to flicker, rapidly and frighteningly, in the bright green that announced an urgent message, as did every other communicator in the Core at the same moment.
Breeze was scanning the message screen with an expression somewhere between stupefaction and horror. "What is it?" Achiever demanded, and she looked at him in bewilderment.
"There have been visitors," she said, every muscle writhing under her skin at once. "They are on Door now, but they are not Heechee. They are visitors who have come from Outside, and they are of another species, not our own."
II
Achiever didn't go back to sleep. Neither did Breeze. Nor did any other Heechee on the night-time sides of any of the hundreds of inhabited planets of the Core's thousands of captive suns. Visitors? From Outside? No, there wasn't much sleep for any Heechee after that news had spread. What there was instead was something close to terror. When the view screens displayed the actual images of these actual intruders the terror was mixed with gut-wrenching revulsion. The alien creatures were sickening to look upon. They were horrible travesties of the Heechee form, bloated, hairy, altogether hideous.
The rest of Breeze and Achiever's flight was brief. When their ship docked at Door, they discovered that the situation had become even worse. The people of Door's permanent party were running about in confusion, and alarming fresh news was arriving, it seemed, every minute. Another ship had come in from outside! No, now there were two of the alien ships—no, three! And one of those ships had not only brought more of these "humans," as they called themselves, but even a couple of Heechee who had been Outside on a scout patrol ship.
The resulting wild confusion was un-Heecheeishly total. There were no handlers at the landing dock to arrange the unloading of Achiever's cargo. Worse, there weren't any instructions from the dispatch officer about their return flight, either. So Achiever left Breeze with the ship and went looking for the dispatcher, but when he reached the dispatcher's quarters the man wasn't there—wasn't where anyone could say, because who knew where anybody was in this madhouse? A madhouse it was. The orderly calm that usually marked the activities of the outpost—indeed, that had always marked almost all of the transactions of the Heechee race, from the beginning of time to this moment—had vanished, destroyed by the news that had taken the whole Heechee race unaware. News of any kind from Outside was rare. But this news was terrifying!
On the other hand, Achiever told himself as he fought his way through the disorderly throng; perhaps they should have been less surprised. After all, you always knew that someday someone might suddenly appear from Outside. You knew it in the same way that you knew that someday you would die and join the Massed Minds, or that, someday, that ill-chosen F-type star the Heechee had brought with them into the Core might grow unstable, and if it did do that, then great damage could be done for a considerable volume of space around it. But you certainly didn't expect such a thing to happen now. Never now!