Yet it had been molded and shaped by human hands, carved and pithed and tunneled; shaven and smoothed and polished. Tubes flared; sensor rings glittered; pods that must have been alfven engines squatted symmetrically along a hull on which, scoured to ghostliness by long centuries of radiation, was blazoned the sunburst of the Commonwealth.
“That ain’t a ship,” Maggie B. commented. “That there is a world.”
“What would it have carried?” her First Officer wondered.
“Anything,” said Donovan, “and everything. Colonists in cold sleep, embryos or seeds of every species; fusion power; nanomachines to remake the chemistry of whole worlds; artificial intelligences and automatons to orchestrate and oversee the whole process. Libraries of libraries. That—is an old Commonwealth terraforming ark.”
“Nanomachines,” said Captain Barnes skeptically. “Artificial intelligences. Fairly tales.”
“Giant ships,” Donovan replied, indicating the ark.
“It’s big and impressive,” she agreed. “But I’ll believe in a nanomachine when I see one.”
“An ark explains the Oorah legend,” Donovan said. “The god fertilizing a world made receptive. Méarana, remember Thistlewaite’s Cautionary Books? The ‘yin on ground’ is…”
“The ‘Vagina of the World.’”
“And ‘yang from sky’ is…”
“I get the picture. So the Oorahs are descended from the crew sent down to prepare the receptors.”
“One of the crews. There must have been others. But something went wrong.”
Ad-Din pointed to the viewscreen. “Maybe that.” He tapped the screen twice and that section magnified.
The sensor ring was melted. Scopes and arrays had sagged, and bent. The hull itself was scorched and broken. Launch tubes and hatches were melted shut. A battle? A brush with the berm of a Krasnikov tube? Stringers of glassine metal ran aft as if in the wind. Whatever had happened had happened under acceleration.
“Looks like a wreck, all right,” said Maggie B.
“Looks like salvage,” her Number One said. “A Commonwealth ship? Even the wreckage is valuable beyond measure.”
Maggie chuckled. “Do you want to put that under tow? We’ll have to mine it in place.”
“And don’t forget,” said Méarana, “parts of it are still working.”
Burly Grimes, the chief engineer, modified a communications satellite; and Ripper Collins, the second pilot, flew it by remote so they could take a closer look. The ark had not reacted to their presence, but Barnes was taking no chances.
The telemetry was displayed on the holostage in the conference room for Méarana and the others to study. Ad-Din took copious notes and marked locations that might provide entry for salvage crews. “Most of it seems to be in vacuum,” he commented, “but there are other sections still holding pressure and maintaining temperature. Here, for example…” His light-pen described a segement of the holo image above the table.
“After so long!” exclaimed Billy.
“Wait!” said “Pop” Haines, the Second Astrogator. “Back up the view there, D.Z. A little more. There!”
A ship, irregular in shape and bristling with sensor arrays, nestled against the ark’s hull.
“It’s an old Abyalon survey ship,” said D.Z. in wonder. “I have a model in my collection.”
“What’s it doing all the way out here?”
“Dang if I know, Pop,” said Maggie, “but I guess we ain’t the first to come across this thing. All right, Mr. Collins, bring her back down the dark side.”
Ripper maneuvered the probe up the ark’s sunlit face and turned on its searchlights. “Be a few minutes,” he said, “before we clear the north face. Newton! It’s like surveying a planetoid.”
As the probe cleared the “top” of the vessel, they could see that the other side of the ship was undamaged. There was a moment in which they glimpsed a second ship jammed into the vessel’s side. Then something on the ark rippled; and everything went black.
They replayed the telemetry of the probe’s last few moments. The second wreck lay half in and half out of the sharp-edged shadows cast by the probe’s searchlights. Ripper magnified the image, cleaned it, enhanced it, threw it on the holostage.
“It’s a Hound’s field office,” Donovan whispered.
A Kennel ship was nearly indestructible. Yet, something had cut it open and tossed it aside like an empty food packet. Méarana turned away from the suddenly blurred image.
Maggie Barnes spoke quietly to her First. “Did the scanners show any life-signs, D.Z.?”
The First Officer glanced at Méarana, then shook his head. “Hull breach. Sorry, m’lady.”
Méarana turned on Donovan. “You told me from the start it would end this way. Are you happy now?”
The Fudir brushed his sleeve against his eyes and shook his head. “No. No, I—” The Sleuth told him it was the logical thing to expect. He listened for his other voices, but even the girl in the chiton was silent.
“Well,” said Captain Barnes after a moment, “we know where not to land.”
A handful of people could learn little about such a vast artifact from a brief visit. Even Bridget ban had intended no more than to confirm its existence and location. But the salvage laws required certain formalities, and one was to set a crew aboard the wreck. Second Officer “Fresh” Franq would take two power room technicians named DeRoche and Wrathrock to make a quick survey of what looked like the engines. Méarana would go because the least she could do was complete what her mother had started, so there was no help for it but that Donovan and the others would accompany her.
“A flying crow always catches something,” Donovan told them. “We may as well watch for exotic materials, hard copy schematics, hand tools. Who knows? There might be something obvious—which is why you have to stay here, Billy. Méarana’s mother was after the activation ray. ‘Fire from the Sky.’ Maybe we can locate the systems that power and control it.”
“Be careful,” Maggie B. warned them. “We know that’s still working.”
“It’s a big ship,” Donovan answered. “It’s not as if we could break it.” Maggie shook her head. “The mucky-mucks can send fleets of experts to pick the ship clean. Before you set out to beat the odds, be sure you can survive the odds beating you.”
Everyone in the Periphery romanticized the old Commonwealth. It had been an era when anything had been possible and so, in song and story, everything was. It had become an age of magic and wonder; of which little more than names had survived. Approaching the vessel, it was hard not to assume that the wildest legends were plain truth. Could such a ship have been constructed by a race any less than godlike? And this had been only one of a vast Treasure Fleet.
Yet: a Fleet now vanished, her descendants living as savages on half-civilized worlds. The hoped-for “end run” had never rescued Terra.
The’ Loons had pushed the closest—they had almost made it—but the Terrans had “moosed,” and the desperate effort had proven in vain. No wonder the’ Loons despised Terrans, even if they had forgotten the details. If he could meet the men of the Commonwealth, Donovan wondered, would he find them as disappointing as he had the True Coriander?
Wild Bill Hallahan flew the shuttle to the ark’s blasted side, well away from the active regions, and took them in through one of the open landing decks spaced down the length of the vessel. Approaching, they saw the shattered remains of boats, among which stood one in almost pristine shape. It was streamlined for atmospheric flight. “Dibs,” said Wild Bill, pointing to it.