With the Link return to Ceres closing in an hour, Kubo Flammarion had time for only a few private minutes with Chan Dalton before he had to guide Dougal MacDougal back to the surface.
"You could fight it, you know." Kubo gestured around him. "I mean, with all this going for you and the Duke to help you, you could say no and I bet we'd never get you out of here. Why did you say yes?"
In the hours since they arrived at the Duke of Bosny's court in the depths of the Gallimaufries—that's what it felt like, a court, even if it wasn't called that—Kubo had been mightily impressed. The way Dalton gave orders, casually; the way everyone nodded and scurried off to obey; the way they all cringed and kowtowed and groveled; no one on Ceres, or anywhere away from Earth, had so much power and control.
The change, he suspected, was not in the inhabitants of the Gallimaufries. It was in Chan Dalton. Kubo remembered Chan as an innocent and compliant youth. Now he was a cool, calculating adult, whose battered face said he had seen everything and did only what he wanted to.
"I don't know why you agreed," Kubo went on, when Chan stared at him silently. "I mean, the aliens . . ."
"You don't like them, do you?"
"Forget the `like' bit. They give me the willies. Especially the Angels. I mean, they're not just aliens. They're not even animals. Why did you agree to meet with 'em?"
Dalton, Flammarion was pleased to see, did not go into the old "I do it for the good of humanity" speech. He had an odd little frown on his scarred face, of mixed puzzlement and annoyance.
"Fair question, Captain," he said. "I don't think I have a choice, but that's not an acceptable answer. Or I could say it's curiosity, and it's certainly partly that. This will be the first Stellar Group Assembly with full human participation since the quarantine. It must mean the aliens want something from us. But what? Will they really end the quarantine if we help them? I'm as keen as the next person to find the answer. If I'm honest, though, there's a bigger and a worse reason: vanity. The aliens don't just want to meet with humans. They want to meet with me, Chan Dalton. I used to be nothing. How can a man resist that?"
Flammarion shivered. "I'll tell you one man who'd have no trouble resisting. Those creepy Angels, and the Tinkers aren't much better, crawling all over everything." He turned his head. Dougal MacDougal was calling from outside the chamber. "Got to go."
"Expect me tomorrow, Captain. I need tonight to wrap a few things up down here."
"Good luck. I don't expect I'll see you again before the Assembly."
When the Assembly convened in the Ceres Star Chamber, Kubo Flammarion wanted to be as far away as possible. A quick Link to the Dry Tortugas, maybe, out at the remote edge of the solar system and as distant from Sol as humans were allowed to go under the quarantine; that felt just about right.
So why, two days later, was he sitting here on Ceres, hidden away where he could see and hear whatever happened during the Stellar Group Assembly? Why had he cajoled and coaxed Milly, who handled the monitors that recorded for posterity every element of the meeting, into letting him sit next to her in the control booth?
Chan Dalton had put his finger on it: the same reason the monkey put his hand in the jar, the same reason the cat sniffed the high-voltage wire. It was curiosity, stupid curiosity. What did the aliens want? But now, with the Assembly just minutes away, Flammarion decided that he didn't much care. He could feel his insides curdling within him—even though he was a hundred meters from the Star Chamber, even though the aliens themselves would be no more than three-dimensional images, linked in from their homeworlds lightyears away.
"Milly," he whispered. "I don't feel so good . . ."
Milly Grant turned to give him the glare of a woman handling an important task. "I told you, if you want to be in here you have to keep quiet." She gestured to the blank monitors. "I've got work to do."
"I'm sorry. I was just wondering how long we have before it starts. I was thinking maybe I might go to the bathroom and—"
"It's starting now, you wasted imbecile. Are you blind as well as ignorant? Use your eyes!"
And now he could see it. The monitors provided a clear view of one hemisphere of the Star Chamber's central atrium. The front of the room was empty, except for Chan Dalton slumped black-clad and scowling in an easy chair. Dougal MacDougal sat far off to the rear, on the observers' bench. Now three oval patterns of light were flickering into existence close to Dalton. The lights gradually solidified to become three-dimensional images of the Stellar Group Ambassadors.
On the far left hung a shrouded, pulsing mass of dark purple. As the image steadied, the shape became the swarming aggregate of a Tinker Composite, imaging in from Mercantor in the Fomalhaut system. The Tinkers had clustered to form a symmetrical ovoid with appendages of roughly human proportions. Next to the Tinker Composite, still showing the margin of rainbow fringes that marked signal transients, hovered the lanky tubular assembly of a Pipe-Rilla. It was linking in from its home planet around Eta Cassiopeiae, a mere eighteen lightyears away. And far off to the right, beyond a vacant spot in the Assembly (but fifty-plus lightyears away in real space, halfway across the domain of the Stellar Group) loomed the dark green bulk of an Angel.
That was the one that made Flammarion shiver in his boots and wish he was somewhere else, as it acknowledged its arrival with a wave of the blue-green fronds at its top end. An Angel wasn't an animal, it wasn't a vegetable; it wasn't anything that Flammarion could relate to. It was some weird symbiotic life-form, discovered a century and a half earlier when the expanding wave-front of human exploration reached the star Capella and the planets around it. The visible part of the Angel was the Chassel-Rose, slow-moving, mindless, and wholly vegetable. Shielded within the bulbous central section lived the sentient crystalline Singer, relying upon the Chassel-Rose for habitat, movement, and communication with the external world. The Angels, depending on the situation, were either very stupid or super-smart in ways that humans could hardly comprehend.
MATTIN LINK NETWORK COMPLETE, said the voice of the computer at Milly Grant's side. THE CONFERENCE MAY NOW PROCEED.
"Present," the Pipe-Rilla said. It was a fourteen-foot nightmare rearing high on its stick-thin legs. The fore-limbs clutched the tubular trunk, and the long antennas were waving.
"Present." The whistling voice of the Tinker Composite appeared from deep within it, accompanied by a flutter of purple wings of its thumb-sized components.
"Present," said Chan Dalton. "Ambassador MacDougal is also in the Star Chamber with me."
"As an observer," the Angel added firmly, "not as a participant. There can be only one participant from each member of the Stellar Group. Is that understood? Too many cooks spoil the broth."
Flammarion grunted and said to Milly, "Still at it! Don't you hate it when they do that?"
The Angels had an annoying habit of using human cliches and proverbs at every opportunity. No one was sure if it was the symbiote's sense of humor, or some perverse notion of species politeness.
In any case, Chan Dalton was used to it. He nodded. "We understand. I will be the only human participant."
"Then all are present," the Angel said. "We can proceed."
There was a silence, long enough for Flammarion to wonder if Milly had lost sound from the monitors. Finally the Pipe-Rilla writhed its limbs, produced a preliminary buzzing sound, and said, "Twenty of your years ago, the members of the Stellar Group were obliged to take an action that we much regretted. Humans, a known intelligent species, were denied access to all Link entry points except those close to your own sun. This quarantine was not imposed lightly, or for no good reason. It was done following more than thirty incidents in which ships with human crews undertook acts of piracy and aggression. Acts of trickery. Of treachery. Of violence."
On the final word, the voice of the Pipe-Rilla rose in pitch, while surface components rose from the Tinker Composite and flew in an agitated fashion around it.
The Pipe-Rilla's narrow thorax leaned forward. "Chan Dalton, we do not accuse you, personally, of such things. Your actions when you worked with our colleagues, so long ago on Travancore, showed you to be a simple, honorable being."
Flammarion glanced at Milly. "Twenty years ago, maybe. Look at him now."
Chan was nodding at the Pipe-Rilla. His weary and battered face wore an expression of cynical amusement. "Nice of you to say kind things like that."
The Pipe-Rilla went on, "However, a species must take responsibility for the actions of all of its members. When humans showed no inclination to deal with the problem, we—Pipe-Rillas, Tinkers, and Angels—were obliged to act for you. We closed the interstellar Link system to human access."
"Yeah. We noticed."
Sarcasm was lost on the Pipe-Rilla. She continued, "Of course, the Link closure was never intended to be permanent. We would continue to observe, and look for beneficial change in human behavior."
"And you've seen it?" Chan's face now showed genuine surprise.
"Regrettably, no. Such a modification has not, so far, occurred. However, a new factor has recently entered the picture. It could lead to the end of the quarantine. What do you know about the region of space known as the Geyser Swirl?"
"Not a thing. Never heard of it."
Dougal MacDougal sat upright on the observers' bench. "If I may say—"
"You may not." The Angel's deep voice cut him off. "Remain silent, or leave."
The Pipe-Rilla went on, uncertainly, "The Geyser Swirl is an ultra-dense gas cloud and associated embedded stars that lie on the Perimeter of the Angel section of the Stellar Group. Until recently, it was believed to be uninhabitable, unremarkable, and of no special interest. However, one year ago we discovered evidence of a Link entry point within the Swirl. This was surprising, and most puzzling. The Link is certainly not of our creation, nor is it under our control. Neither is it a Link of natural origin, which would have been discovered during the first survey of the Swirl.
"Our curiosity at such an anomaly was aroused. It has been our experience that the most valuable discoveries are often associated with the strangest events. We dispatched an exploration team of Tinkers and a Pipe-Rilla to the Swirl using the new Link, and we had no thought of danger. Why should we, since Link access has always been perfectly safe? When the team failed to return on schedule, we thought there had perhaps been an equipment failure. We sent a second team, this time with an Angel as captain and crew."
"And it didn't come back?" Chan Dalton had lost his slouch.
"That is correct. How did you know that? It did not return. Neither expedition has returned. A single equipment failure is unlikely but possible. Two such, in immediate succession, represent a vanishingly small p-probability." The Pipe-Rilla was beginning to stammer. "B-but what other options are there?"
"Something—or somebody—in the Geyser Swirl doesn't like company. They're knocking off your expeditions as fast as they arrive."
"That is our f-fear. B-but how do we d-determine if that is true?"
"Easy enough. You send a third team. If it doesn't come back, you'll know for sure."
"Regarding a third team—" began Dougal MacDougal, but he was drowned out by the Pipe-Rilla, screaming a reply.
"Y-yes. A third t-team. But that would m-mean s-s-sending s-s-s-someone t-to almost s-s-s-sure d-d-d-d-d." The Pipe-Rilla's speech degenerated into a series of sputtering noises. The Tinker Composite broke into a myriad small components that darted frantically around the imaging volume.
"It is difficult to speak of such things," the Angel said slowly. "Impossible for a Pipe-Rilla or a Tinker, and possible for me only because I am able for brief periods to operate in human simulation mode. You know the prime rule of the Stellar Group: Intelligent life must be preserved. It cannot be destroyed—ever. But we suspect that it is being destroyed in the Geyser Swirl. The Swirl is dangerous."
"Sounds like it. But you won't be sure of that unless somebody goes there again and takes a look."
"Yes indeed. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Therefore let me, quickly, attempt to say the rest of this. We concur with your suggestion. We should send a third expedition, to learn the fate of the first two and if possible rescue them. But that might mean our sending intelligent life, knowingly, to its death in the Geyser Swirl."
"Can't be helped. That's what you have to do."
"But, Chan Dalton, that is what we are unable to do."
"Then you got problems."
"Problems indeed. And, as we see it, only one possible solution. Humans. You do not have the same attitude toward the preservation of life—even of your own lives—as other Stellar Group members. An expedition to the Geyser Swirl, headed by a human whom we already know and trust, a human who is willing to do whatever is necessary to learn the fate of the earlier teams, and if possible bring them home . . ."
The Tinker Composite had vanished from the Star Chamber. Its components, mindless as individuals, had dispersed and flown out of the imaging volume. The Pipe-Rilla was still present, but it had bent forward and curled its body until the narrow head was almost on the floor.
"Let's see if I have this right." Chan Dalton stood up. "You want me to leave the nice, cushy job I have back on Earth and fly a team out to the Geyser Swirl in the ass end of the known universe, where chances are I'll get knocked on the head the second I come out of the Link exit. I'm supposed to bring the other two teams back, dead or alive. Suppose I say yes—and I'm not saying that I will. What's in it for me?"
"If you undertake this task, we, the members of the Stellar Group, are ready to lift the quarantine on humans. Naturally, it will be for a trial period, while we again evaluate human behavior. But this time we will recognize, as we are recognizing now, that certain tasks cannot be performed without the assistance of humans."
"Very nice—for humans. You haven't said what's in it for me, but we'll worry about that later. So I go off to the Swirl, and when I'm there things get kind of nasty. I have to kill off a few aliens before there's any chance of coming home. Are you saying that will be all right?"
"No!" The blue-green fronds on the Angel's upper body were thrashing in agitation, while the recumbent Pipe-Rilla in the next imaging volume uttered a continuous spluttering moan. "You refer to the killing of other intelligent beings! Of course it is not all right! It is absolutely forbidden. Violence is never the only solution. The rules of conduct of civilized beings must not be violated."
The Angel turned slowly, from right to left. "It appears that the other representatives are no longer able to participate in this meeting. What is your decision?"
"No decision. I have to think about it."
"Then think about it well, Chan Dalton, and with all possible speed. We will return, one of your days from now, to learn your answer."
The Angel became a prismatic blur of colors. The Link was closing.
And that was probably just as well. Chan Dalton happened to be looking right at the monitor as he moved toward the front of the chamber, and his muttered words came through clearly to Flammarion and Milly Grant.
"Crazy. What do they think I am, some kind of human sacrifice putting my butt on the line for nothing? I'm out of here."
But he could not leave. Dougal MacDougal stood right in his path. "Ah, Chan Dalton." MacDougal took him by the arm, then released him when he saw Chan's glare. "That was most interesting, and most promising. They are ready to end the quarantine!"
"I agreed to nothing."
"Ah, but I know you will make the right decision—for the good of humanity. However, there are one or two points that we urgently need to discuss before the Stellar Group returns tomorrow."
The Ambassador had a most odd expression on his face. Flammarion would have said it was embarrassment, had he been able to think of any reason for such a look. He said urgently to Milly, "Don't turn off the monitor!"
"Of course I won't." She sniffed. "And don't you try to teach me my business, Flammarion. I've been doing this for years, and I know how to read MacDougal. When he gets that pie-faced look something peculiar is on the way. Sit tight, keep quiet, and maybe you'll learn something."
"Something to eat? Something to drink?"
The Ambassador was over by the Star Chamber's service machine, fiddling nervously with the controls.
"Nothing." Chan sat with arms folded and knees together. "Cut the crap, MacDougal. You knew, didn't you?"
"About the ending of the quarantine? I swear, it was a total surprise—"
"About the Geyser Swirl. I'd never heard of the place, but you had. I could see your face in the little monitor on my seat, and when they said that their expeditions hadn't come back, you nodded."
"I knew about their expeditions, but that wasn't what had me worried. It was whatever I knew." MacDougal moved to sit across from Chan. He had a gigantic drink in his left hand and placed another just as big on the table next to him. "Cheers." He raised the glass he was holding and took a long draft. "God, I needed that. I had no idea they were going to talk about the Swirl, and when they did I was more afraid of what they might know than what they might tell us. Look, Dalton, you've not been off Earth for a long time. You know they closed all the remote Links so we can't use them?"
"Of course I do. If it weren't for that I wouldn't be down on Earth. I'd be out where the action is—where it used to be, near the Perimeter."
"Then you should have some idea how frustrating it has been for me; Ambassador to the Stellar Group, and I can't even visit another star or a planet outside the solar system. It's been twenty years. We keep on testing, living in hopes that we might find a Link open. Nothing. The Stellar Group has some sort of general Link inhibitor that closes down everything for human ships. Or it did. About seven months ago, we picked up a signal from a new Link. You can guess where."
"In the Geyser Swirl."
"Right. The Swirl is at the edge of Angel territory, and we knew next to nothing about it. As the Angel said, it just seems like an uninteresting clot of dust, a few lightyears across, with no Sol-type stars. Why put a Link there? The answer was, nobody did. So humans never felt a reason to go there when we had Link access. When we picked up the signs of a new Link, we thought the Angels must have opened it. We did our usual tests, expecting the usual "denied access" message. But we didn't get that. The return signal said the Link was open to our ships."
"So why didn't you go there?"
"That's what I'm trying to tell you. We did! We sent the Mood Indigo, a small exploration vessel with a crew of three, through an outward Link near the Vulcan Nexus with destination the Geyser Swirl Link."
"And it never came back."
"Exactly. Of course, it could not be an official expedition. We hired a highly competent and experienced private team, whose members realized that we would deny any connection if the Stellar Group ever found out what had happened and started asking questions. But that meant we couldn't ask the Stellar Group for help if the Mood Indigo got into trouble. The ship is long overdue, and we assume that everyone on board is dead. So you see, there have actually been three test cases, the way that you wanted. And it's worse than you think. If the Mood Indigo had problems, it was equipped with a recorder that should have fired back through the Link automatically. Even if the rest of the ship were destroyed, the recorder ought to come home. It didn't. That means the ship must be a dead and derelict hulk, totally shattered. Somebody in the Geyser Swirl is catching Stellar Group ships and disintegrating them before they can return through the Link."
"Marvelous. And you think I'm keen to charge off to the Swirl, after hearing all that? One of us is crazy."
"You've had experience in other stellar systems. We would give you the toughest ship and the best crew that you could ask for. And it's obvious that this time the other Stellar Group members will do everything they can to help."
"Everything, except let us defend ourselves if some crazy alien comes screaming in to kill us. Then I guess we just lie down and roll over. Ambassador, it isn't just no. It's no way. Unless certain other conditions are met."
"There's more." MacDougal gestured to the other glass. "Here. Drink that. You're going to need it."
"Why? What else didn't you bother to tell me before the Star Chamber meeting?"
"Not a thing. I told you everything I knew then. But now that the meeting is over, I'll tell you one other thing." Dougal MacDougal leaned closer to Chan. "I'm an Ambassador. With only the two of us here, I'm willing to say I'm just an Ambassador. Lots of robes and uniforms and ceremonies, but I'm not one of the real power brokers in the solar system. Now, the Stellar Group is offering to end the quarantine. To open up the universe. Do you have any idea how much that means to groups like Unimine, or Foodlines, or Infotech?"
"I can guess."
"I don't think you can. The Stellar Group can't stand violence, but some of the corporate boys seem to thrive on it. You tell them you won't cooperate to end the quarantine. You tell them you want to go back to Earth. You'll go back to Earth all right—without a Link, and without a rocket. You'll do a solo re-entry with or without a space suit and return home as a puff of dust."
Chan reached out and picked up the glass from the table. He drank long and deep, then said, "Now you're giving me the sort of logic I understand. I agree to go, or they skin me alive."
"If they're feeling in a kind mood. You're going, then?"
"I still need to think about it."
"Then you're not as smart as I thought you were."
"Or I'm smarter. There's something else. You sat in the meeting. Let me tell you something you didn't notice."
"I watched everything."
"But you didn't catch this, or you'd have said something about it already. You tell me, the other Stellar Group members will do everything they can to help. But I'm not sure of that. They sent two expeditions to the Geyser Swirl, right?"
"That's what they told us."
"And I feel sure they were telling the truth. But why? Why two expeditions?"
"Obviously, because the first one didn't come back."
"That's obvious to you, and obvious to me. But you know the Pipe-Rillas and the Tinkers and the Angels. They're not risk takers. It must have been hard work persuading one team of theirs to head into unknown territory like the Geyser Swirl. And then they persuaded a second one to go?"
"Apparently they did. They do not lie."
"Think about that second ship. The Stellar Group members are born cowards. They wouldn't go for the love of exploration, or for scientific curiosity." Chan shook his head. "For that, they'd send unmanned probes. I don't have proof of this, but I'll tell you what I think. I think that the Stellar Group believes something enormously valuable may be hidden in the Geyser Swirl. So valuable, they were willing to send one expedition, and then another when that one didn't come back. Think of it, a whole new link—think where it might take you, think what you might find there." Chan raised his glass and emptied it in one long swallow. "How keen are they to learn what happened in the Geyser Swirl? I don't know. But we'll get some idea—when we hear their response to my own conditions before I'll say yes."