"You've killed a lot of people," Mirina asked, shocked, staring at the man. "Why stop at that?"
"You dumb brawn," Bisman said, whirling to point a finger at her through the crowd of upright Thelerie. "You fool! Think of how many people you've bilked out of their savings, Madam Don! You're going to prison, too! You don't get any points for virtue."
Mirina was pale, too, but she confronted him bravely. "You can say a lot of things, Aldon, but you can never accuse me of murder. Did you do it?"
"No! I didn't know," he said, turning back to Carialle's pillar. "It wasn't intentional, madam. I'd never have left a living being in space like that. You don't. Spacer's law. If I'd had any idea… if there'd been a sign of life. We monitored for transmissions. There was a beacon going, but what about it? You must have been nearly dead, ma'am. I didn't bomb you."
"I know," Carialle said. "It was sabotage."
"They did the job thoroughly," Bisman said, fervently. "You… it was a fused lump. I can't believe you were alive in that."
"Oh, I was. I could hear you. You laughed. I've been hating you for twenty years," Carialle said, "wondering why you didn't help me get out of there."
"I didn't know," Bisman said, his cool poise shattered. "I swear, none of us did. We saw the hulk, and spotted some components I knew we could boost. We were just trying to make a few credits. But I know the law of space, and I'd hope it would protect me too," he said earnestly. "If I'd had the least iota you were alive inside it, I'd have towed you somewhere."
"Somewhere?" Keff asked, shoving his face into the man's and making him back up a pace. "Like that illegal base at the edge of the Cridi system, for example? So you could finish your salvage?"
Bisman faced Keff down with a snarl. "We heard nothing, brawn. That ship was dead, dead, dead so far as I was concerned. If you'd seen how it looked, ma'am, compacted downlike, you would think so, too. There were damaged capacitors firing off now and again nearly blinding us or burning through our gloves, backup batteries imploding up and down the hulk. I'd have put any residual warmth down to those. We didn't have the best equipment, ma'am. That's why we were salvaging. There could've been a heartbeat deep in there, but I swear we checked."
"Not enough," Keff growled.
"Keff, let him alone," Carialle said. "I believe you." The prison door opened, and she saw sunlight beyond it. She felt immeasurably better. "Thank you for the truth." She sighed. "I only wish I had some solid proof to add to your statement."
"I have some," Keff said, pulling the scrap of metal out of his tunic pocket. "I found it in the field when it was raining ship parts." He held it up to the nearest camera eye. Carialle zoomed in on it, but she didn't need magnification. The small titanium square said "963." It was her original number plate.
"I never noticed that one," Mirina said. "He had a whole collection of those from the ships we gutted among the junk he collected. They were his trophies. I'd have recognized it if I'd seen it. They gave me Charles's." She took a square of metal out of her pocket and showed it to Carialle's camera eye over the food synthesizer. On the fragment was etched "702." "I suppose you heard the whole story."
"Yes," Carialle said. "I'm sorry."
"Now we have physical proof and a confession," Keff said, rubbing his hands together. "We can take this back to the CenCom and shove it up a certain person's nose."
"We have also heard confessions," Noonday said from her nest, looking around for some manifestation of Carialle's to address. Carialle produced the Lady Fair image on the nearest screen over the console, and had it meet the Sayas's golden gaze. "We have those who have shamed us before you now. What will you have us do with them?"
"You'd better ask the Cridi," Carialle said. "I think they have the first claim on reparation."
Big Voice and a few of the others popped up above the crowd. All of the Melange Thelerie protested. The one called Autumn raised her voice.
"Spare us the Slime!" she said desperately, pushing forward to address the image. The guardians crossed their back-scratchers to bar her way. "Only the sacred humans can dictate our fate. I will otherwise kill all my crew."
"Be silent," Noonday said severely.
"We're not sacred," Keff said, shaking his head. "and by the way, I don't think we're your beings of legend. Do you know, Cari, a little idea occured to me. Noonday, let me suggest something to you. Your legend concerns four-limbed, wingless creatures from the stars who were supposed to help you winged ones to fly in the void. Is that right?"
"It is our most beloved story," Noonday said, nodding her great head.
"How old is it?" Keff asked.
"How old? Told for, mmm, one thousand six hundred of our years."
"Narrow Leg," Keff asked, turning to the Cridi captain, "when did the Cridi explore this system and reject it as a possibility for settlement?"
Narrow Leg's eyes twinkled, and he bobbed up and down near the ceiling. The rest of the Cridi looked curious, but he made a few quick hand signals, and they laughed merrily.
"It is possible," he said. "One thousand six hundred revolutions times.88768 equals 1,420 revolutions-yes. It could have been Cridi explorers."
"No!" Autumn said, aghast, gaping at the Cridi. "You assume that all these many years we have revered the wrong species?"
"I think that's exactly what you have done," Keff said, rocking back on his heels in satisfaction. "The legend doesn't say how big the beings were, does it?"
"No," Noonday said, peering at him. "It does not."
"Then, it could have been, couldn't it?" Carialle asked, projecting an image of a bipedal being on the wall beside the silhouette of a Thelerie. She made the biped in human proportions, than shrank it to half its original height. "It's more likely they landed here than a stray human ship. They're virtually next door."
"I am disgraced," Autumn said, dropping her gaze to the floor.
The rest of the Thelerie turned to stare at Bisman and the human crew.
"It's not our fault nobody measured your visitors," Bisman said, testily. "Look, we've done a lot for you. "Telephone, gas lights, spaceships…"
"You have done much ill, too," Noonday said firmly. "If my child had not admitted the wrongs, if more had been open about their experiences, we would have rejected you long ago." She addressed Carialle. "If you are going back to your Central Worlds, we will keep these bad ones in safe custody until you return."
"There's a lot to do yet," Carialle said. "We can't leave until we… I'm receiving an incoming message," she said to Keff. "And this time, it is a CW ship."
"CK-963, this is DSM-344. Remain where you are. Do not lift ship," the uniformed commander said severely from the central screen. "Repeat: do not lift ship. You are under arrest. Any attempts at escape will result in the destruction of your vessel."
"This is the CK-963," Carialle said. "Why are we under arrest?" There was a brief time lag for the distance between the ship and the planet. By the time the screen cleared again, another human had taken the place of the commander in front of the video pickup, a tall, thin man with graying hair and an overwhelming moustache that had been waxed firmly into submission. To Carialle it was the most unwelcome face in the galaxy. Her blood vessels constricted momentarily, but the shock passed quickly.
"This is Dr. Maxwell-Corey, Carialle," he said, in his thin, irritated voice. "You left the Cridi planet strictly against orders."
Keff interposed himself in front of one of her video pickups at once.
"Dr. Maxwell-Corey, how nice to see you," he said. "The circumstances altered the import of your orders. We had to investigate the destruction of the DSC-902, as we transmitted to you, as soon as possible before the perpetrators got too far away. We found them. You did receive our messages?"