Again, silence.

Pamir laughed quietly, his focus returning to the volumes of data. What he saw was scrupulously ordinary dust. But what else would there be? A useful paranoia mixed with the wildest speculations, and he ordered a new sequence of spectra along with a hammering of microwaves.

“It’s a tough, damning burden,” he echoed. Then with a nod, he added, “Bluster is a good trick. But if you ever feel your bluster wearing thin, tell me. Right away, tell me.”

The proud voice asked, “What will you do then?”

“I’ll share my luck with you,” Pamir remarked. “And believe me. If it comes to it, you’ll be happy to get all the luck you can … !”

QUARTERS WERE CLOSE, and after ages spent wandering through the vast halls and rooms of the Great Ship, the crew had to make adjustments. Frames of reference had to diminish, personal space retreating to a cramped minimum. In place of ten-hectare apartments and endless possessions, a tiny cabin and a single uniform had to be enough. And as the mission progressed, that narrow existence had to become natural, or better, feel like more than plenty.

“Humans are adaptable creatures,” Perri proclaimed one day, tucked into one of the narrow slots inside their very tiny galley. Eating a slice of cultured petty roast, he happily added, “‘We’re more adaptable than most species, from my experience.”

“Or more stupid,” Pamir replied.

Quee Lee seemed to be listening to their little argument. To the eye, she was lovely enough that Pamir found himself instantly aware of her location in any room, and unlike her husband, she preferred to look like a woman who enjoyed what was once called middle age. She had pleasantly rounded features and an easy warm smile. There was a little gray in the bright black hair. But the smile had retreated, and with a voice just hinting at worry, she said, “It’s getting louder.”

The rainlike rumbling, she meant.

Maneuvering rockets were firing in tens now, constantly and fiercely, and they were still five or six or maybe ten days from the Inkwell. Not for the first time, or last, Pamir reminded everybody, “We’ll adjust our tolerances, eventually.”

Cut down the distances between near collisions, he meant.

“Besides,” he continued, “the polyponds maintain that the debris fields won’t get any worse. Not along our course, at least.”

Only a few people took the trouble to reexamine the aliens’ charts. Most couldn’t find reassurance from a species they didn’t know, much less believe those broad claims of sweeping the worst dangers out of the blackness before them. That kind of trickery seemed unlikely. Or it was just too sweet. Or worst of all, it was all true—the polyponds genuinely wielded complete control over the whereabouts of every mote and snowflake inside their homeland—and that type of power was too impressive, too incredible and odd, and with the slightest shift of mood, it could prove deadly.

Nudging the conversation back to useful topics, Pamir asked, “Any thoughts about the newest news?”

Everyone fell silent and thoughtful.

Nexuses were opened; memories were triggered.

Quee Lee responded first. With a smoothly amazed voice, she asked, “Have you ever heard of such a remarkable life-form?”

Pamir had known a few odd creatures, but he didn’t respond.

“What they’re admitting … how they’ve organized themselves and their biology …” She hesitated. “But maybe, no. Maybe they aren’t that remarkable.”

“We’re all spectacularly remarkable,” Perri offered.

Quee Lee nodded, smiled. Then she looked at her husband in a certain way, and he blurted the name of one of the Great Ship’s alien species.

She offered another.

And with a boyish wink, he added a third.

They were having an intricate, deeply personal conversation. Married for aeons, as familiar and accepting of each other as any two people could be, they had so thoroughly shared themselves to each other that every glance could open up entire volumes. A raised eye and a fond smile caused both of them to say, “The Queen,” in the same instant, then laugh loudly. Sitting across the galley from one another, they reached out, unable to touch but their fingers still curling as if clinging to each other, so perfectly familiar with the mate’s grip that even with half a dozen people between them, they felt as if they were holding hands.

It was a marriage that enthralled and embarrassed the rest of the crew, putting them to shame and setting a lofty goal that ten billion years of happy life might not produce.

Pamir felt all the valid emotions.

On occasion, drifting past their tiny cabin door, the antinoise shield would flicker, allowing a warm, excited, and a curiously anonymous voice to escape. A wail of pleasure; a sob of exhaustion. Which was why he had dubbed them, “the honeymooners.” And that was why he laughed now, gently teasing them with the hoary barb, “Would you two like to be alone?”

Perri showed his wife a certain wink.

And Quee Lee grinned and grinned, every tension erased, that warm sensuous voice remarking with a seamless, infectious joy, “I’m very sorry, Captain. I thought we were alone.”

TWO DAYS OUT of the Inkwell, their luck ran thin.

“It’s a system failure,” the AI reported, “and I don’t seem to be able to … wait … no, I cannot fix it by myself—”

“It’s the armor?” Pamir blurted.

“No, the V-elbow has jammed,” the voice reported.

“Now?”

Then with a flash of grim humor, the AI pointed out, “But this would be the most inconvenient time.”

The streakship was in the middle of realigning itself. While the bulk of hyperfiber umbrella remained in the forward position, the rest of its body was undergoing a series of slow contortions. Fuel tanks and engines and the tiny habitat were shifting and sliding, reworking the architecture of the entire machine to place their aft in the lead, making ready for the long braking burns.

“What do you need?” Pamir asked.

“Hands,” the AI replied.

“How many, and where?”

Precise diagrams were delivered both to Pamir’s nexus and to the simple reader embedded in his cabin wall.

“Fuck,” he offered.

“Indeed,” the AI agreed.

Mass restrictions meant that the ship had no robots equal to the task. If necessary, they could be assembled, but their components were scattered and currently occupied. Time mattered, and at least two pairs of hands were needed. But making matters infinitely worse, the balky elbow was currently thrust out beyond the protective fringe of the armor. Left there too long, the relentless rain of atoms and little molecules would erode it to a rotten shell.

With a genuine sorrow, the AI said, “I have listed the crew according to qualifications. As you can see—”

“Where’s my name?” Pamir interrupted.

“You are my captain,” it countered. “For the good of the ship, you should never place yourself in mortal danger.”

“Except that’s where we are,” he muttered. “Account for training and experience, and physical size, too. Who’s at the top of this chart?”

The AI searched hard but found no way to win the debate. Grudgingly, it set Pamir’s name first, where it belonged, and with a flourish, it made its case for what had become the second-place name.

“No,” said Pamir.

Then after a momentary pause, he announced, “I’m taking Perri.”

“Who’s only a passenger,” the AI reminded him. “A self-taught expert in other species, but hardly trained in this sort of work.”

Pamir nodded, a tight little grin surfacing.

“Did you know?” he asked. “Perri was born as a Remora. He grew up on the hull, in the dangerous old days.”

“That information isn’t in his personnel file.”

“Because the poor guy lost the faith,” Pamir remarked with a heavy shrug. “He came under the hull and found a new identity, charmed a rich woman, and got himself a new life. But I know the man. I’d prefer a washed-up Remora beside me, if I have my choice. Which, I believe, I do.”