Toby could only glimpse them through the clotted phrases of their conversations, through half-made gestures, through the veiled language of shrugs and scowls and sudden, blunt looks that revealed momentary, naked emotion. The Cap’n was never able to unburden himself, not even to his son. Not even, perhaps, to Shibo . . . when she had lived.
Things were weighing on Killeen. Shibo’s loss. Killeen’s oblique relation now with his own son. The approaching whirlpool of True Center. All these churned within his father’s mind, Toby knew. An unhealthy soup.
Killeen gazed out at the blue-black mass that loomed like an absolute wall beside the Argo. It was a snarled, inky cloud of dust and simple molecules, their ship’s instruments said. But Killeen always distrusted the crisp certainties of Argo’s Bridge diagnostics. Years before he had formed the habit of surveying from the hull itself, free of the reassuring, softening, artificial clasp of the ship. Or at least that was what he said. Toby suspected that he just liked to get clear of Argo’s confines. Like father, like son.
Gloomy clouds like this dotted the pressing radiance of the Galactic Center, black punctuation marks in a riot of stellar fire. Killeen had chosen Argo’s course to take advantage of this cloud as a shield against lethal radiation levels. As Argo slipped slowly by veiled, murky filaments, Toby watched his father’s face tighten, wrinkle with a grimace—and suddenly open in astonishment.
—There!—Killeen pointed.—Moving.—
Toby thumbed a control on his neck collar. The helmet computer telescoped his vision and shifted to infrared. His field of view rushed into the recesses of the cloud.
Something snaked at the edge of the mottled mist.
—Go to high mags,—Killeen said tersely, his surprise gone, all business.
Toby sent his vision zooming to max magnification. RANGE: 23 KM, his visor told him.
The snaky thing wriggled—slowly, slowly. Its gleaming jade skin reflected the starglow. Sluggishly it spread gossamer-thin sheets along its body.
—It’s alive!—Toby called.
The green serpent was using sails. Natural sails, grown out of its body on fibrous spars. They caught amber starlight. In zero gravity, Toby knew, even the faint pressure of light was enough to give a measurable push. With nothing to slow it down, the twisty creature would pick up speed.
—Look.—Killeen whispered.—There’s something more in that cloud.—
The gently wriggling beast had no head, only a long black slit at one end. Toby thought this must be a mouth, because the push from its broad, shiny sails was taking it forward with the slit end ahead. And it was sailing in pursuit of a blue ball.
Silently they watched it draw nearer, nearer—and the slit-mouth widened. Something orange shot out and stuck to the blue ball. Drew it in. The slit-mouth yawned. With two gulps the ball disappeared.
—Predators.—Killeen said.—And prey.—
Toby said wonderingly,—Pred . . . ? How can anything live in a cloud? In free space?—
A grin split Killeen’s star-tanned face.—In free space? Nothing’s free, son. Molecular clouds have organic molecules, right? So the astro types say.—
—Those names, yeasay.—Toby recalled the voice of his teacher Aspect, Isaac, who gave him complicated lessons.—Oxygen. Carbon. Nitrogen.—
Killeen gestured expansively.—Add all this starlight, cook for a few billion years. Presto!—
Toby blinked.—Life’s hiding all through this cloud?—
—I’ll bet the hunting is good at the edge of the cloud. Some things prob’ly live deeper in, where they can hide. Every now and then they’ll come out. To bask in the starlight. Get warm.—
Toby nodded, convinced.—That snaky thing, it knows that. Comes around, looking for supper.—
—The sail-snake eats the blue balls. But what’s the blue ball eat?—
—Something smaller. Something we can’t see from here.—
—Right.—Killen squinted.—There’s got to be some critter that lives off the starlight and drifting molecules alone.—
Toby said wonderingly,—Plants? Space plants. I’ll bet we can eat some of them.—
Killeen pounded his son on the back.—Be a wonder if we couldn’t. We know these clouds have the same basic chemistry that nature generates everywhere. Argo’s science programs told us that, ’member? So we’ll be able to digest some of whatever’s hiding in there, for sure.—
Toby blinked, watching the jade snake unfurl its sails further. Was it green for the same reason plants were, to sop up sunlight in all colors except green? It began an achingly slow turn, showing curved black stripes. Had it seen their ship? Maybe they should run it down, see what it tasted like. His stomach rumbled at the idea.
But the creature had a majesty about it, too. A beauty in its glistening hide, its graceful movement. Like an immense swimmer in a black pool. Maybe they’d leave it be.
—We’d never have seen them from the bridge. Those instruments would’ve filtered out what they didn’t think was important.—Killeen was all business again, his wonderment suppressed. That was part of the price of being Cap’n.
Toby gaped, still fascinated by the sail-snake. He knew what his father said was right. Nobody could have guessed what they’d see out here. But Killeen had come out, again and again. Hammering away at a Cap’n’s problems, thinking, worrying, pacing the hull, looking without knowing what he was looking for. And some of the crew had thought he was crazy.
Toby listened as Killeen called the Bridge and ordered Argo toward the shadowy cloud. Understanding came slowly amid the crew. He could hear on comm as the ship stirred with excited voices, with hope, with joy.
—Dad?—he finally asked.
Killeen was giving a flurry of orders. Crew had to prepare to hunt, to forage, to pursue strange game in inky vacuum depths. To do things they had never tried before. Had never even imagined.
Killeen paused and said curtly,—Yeasay?—
—We can hole up inside the cloud for a while. Rest up. Get our bearings.—
Killeen shook his head furiously.—Naysay. Resupply, that’s all. There’s True Center. Look at it! We’re so close now.—
Toby peered ahead, through dusty clumps already wreathing the hull of Argo as the great ship headed into the recesses of the giant cloud. At max mag he could make out the exact center of the galaxy. White-hot. Beautiful. Dangerous.
And his father, he now saw, could never be deflected from that goal. Not by starvation. Not by deadly risks. Not by the weight of past sorrow.
