Killeen instantly snapped out of his musing. “Near the danger line?”
“Not yet, but—”
“Coolant circulating to the max?”
“Yessir.”
Killeen scowled. “How’s our spin?”
“We’ve got all the independently moving sections of the ship at their top rotation.” Jocelyn’s full, muscular frame stayed at strict attention, but Toby could see from her twitching fingers that she was worried.
They were spinning parts of Argo to smooth out the heat load. The ferocious rage of that brawling gas could singe their hull, and crisp up the human cargo nicely. Toby recalled Quath’s gourmet comments about cracking open carefully cooked primate bones, savoring the marrow. He shuddered.
Killeen smacked a fist into his palm, a momentary release. “I don’t see what more we—”
<We are now needful of the Besik Bay,> came the fizzy speech of Quath, beamed over general head-comm.
The Bridge crew turned as if one. They stared at the half-seen alien who stood absolutely still in the corridor outside.
Killeen was the first to speak, with sardonic humor. “I wondered when you would begin to spill your lore.”
Quath’s two eye-stalks rattled against the hatchway. <You are delicate grubs, unable to take the heat. Should you perish from being toasted here, I would grow lonely.>
Killeen laughed. “Glad to know you care so much. Those antennas we erected—I suppose your new link with your ships works better?”
<I speak well and [unknown]. You cannot glimpse the full [untranslatable] of what it means to converse with others who truly understand.>
“Well, we’re learning.” Killeen grinned. Toby could see his father relish the conversation, his face losing its lined tension.
Partially.
<You are clever, for ones so stunted.>
“We don’t need all that extra mass you lug around.”
<Wisdom comes from accumulation. Mites do not know this.>
“You look like you’ve grown some more eyes, since I saw you last time.”
<I am of the Myriapodia, not limited to your feeble two viewing boles. We watch, slit-eyed, many-orbed. There are many abundant visions in this wracked place. But I have no need for more legs, for we do not run from even the most fierce of dangers.>
Toby knew the word “Myriapodia” simply meant “many-legged,” but the funny trilling way Quath sounded the word carried an air of awe and pride, too. Killeen had told Toby to get here in a hurry, then had ignored Quath completely. Toby was beginning to see that Killeen had different ways of dealing with the alien, maybe better ones.
“This Besik Bay. You want to hide there, many-eyed?”
The crew murmured. Toby knew they all suspected that they were being used by the Podia for some murky purpose, and this brought that question close to the surface again. But what choice did they have now?
Quath rattled her eye-stalks again. <The Philosophs believe it wise.>
“Ummm—diplomatic of you. But I asked what you think.”
<The name itself calls up worn fables, but little information. Ancient expeditions of Myriapodia found it so labeled—apparently by humans.>
Toby put in, “Besik? No Family of that name.”
<It refers to some ancient human site, a refuge—there.>
Somehow Quath made the wall screens jump and swivel. They whirled around as the ship’s sensors sought a different target—and locked on an inky blob, high above the glowering red disk.
<Explorers have used Besik Bay’s shade to elude the disk’s heat. Or so old tales tell. Myriapodia sheltered there, cooled, and then fled from this storm wrack of stars.>
Killeen gestured to Lieutenant Jocelyn. “Take us up that way.” He had always been one for quick decisions, and the Bridge jumped to comply. Killeen turned back to Quath, his expression veiled. “What were your ancestors looking for here?”
<A weapon fabled in our older tales.>
“What kind of weapon?”
<In the end, all tools of defense are knowledge. We sought the [untranslatable].>
“Can’t say more than that?”
<I do not know what this [untranslatable] knowledge is.>
“Hell! Look, for Family Bishop True Center is a legend. Almost a holy place—only we don’t know why.”
<It is much the same for us. I believe however that your kind have been here before we ever ventured in.>
“Yeasay?” Killeen frowned. “Whatever we did, way back then, it’s lost.”
