“Sorry?” Safa said.

“This ship’s belly is moored to the Rock. And we’re walking around insidethe ship’s belly. Because of Vangar’s spin, that way,” he pointed at the deck plating, “should be up.”

Moira grinned, understanding. “And I thought I was just having an attack of vertigo when I came through the hatch.” She knelt on one knee and carefully pried up a mitr-square deck plate with her gauntleted hands.

She placed the deck plate against a nearby bulkhead, holding it steady with one hand and her tail. With her free hand, she removed a small spanner from her suit’s utility kit and held it parallel to the deck plate. Then she released the spanner.

The tool “fell” sideways, coming to rest against the deck plate.

[232] Hanif felt his eyebrows launch themselves toward higher orbits. Spinless artificial gravity!

He touched his suit’s radio controls again. “Wafiyy to Director al-Adnan.”

After a beat, the director’s voice crackled into Hanif’s helmet. “What’s happening over there, Hanif? Are the hostiles neutralized?”

“All dead, Director. We lost only Gavin.”

The director hesitated another moment before responding. “Gavin. That’s ... unfortunate.”

Hanif smiled, but without any humor. Unfortunate, you mean, that the sole casualty on this mission wasn’t me. Do you really fear that I’ll take your job?He could remember a time when al-Adnan had been more concerned with protecting the ’Neal People than with maintaining the trappings of authority.

Hanif decided then that what the director feared most was change in general. And that made al-Adnan a most dangerous man to follow, especially in an environment where survival depended upon the ability to adapt quickly to the universe’s random exigencies.

“Is there anything, else?”al-Adnan added, sounding impatient.

Get ready to adapt to the future, Director,Hanif thought. Lead, follow, or get the hell out of its way.

Aloud, Hanif said, “Tell the Science Heads we’re bringing back some things that will keep everyone in Vangar busy for decades.” Then he cut off the transmission without waiting for the director’s reply.

Hanif stared once again into pulsating depths of the enigmatic blue cylinder. Standing quietly beside him, Safa and Moira were doing likewise.

Maybe we won’t have to sit around waiting for the universe to come after us much longer. Perhaps the time has come for us to start pursuing it.

Chapter 19

2204, Auld Greg Aerth Calendar

“In composition, mass, and atmosphere, it looks very much like Aerth, sir,” the control deck’s officer of the watch said. “And that’s a rare thing, with all the hard rads flying about in this corner of the cosmos.”

Drech’tor Hanif Wafiyy nodded. He sat back in his padded chair, feeling every one of his eighty-four Aerth-years, as lifespans were still measured within Vangar. The plates of coarse flesh that interleaved across the small of his back ached. He reminded himself to adjust the gravity in his quarters yet again.

Eighty-four years,he thought, gazing at the great blue world displayed in the wide viewer. We must still reckon time that way because even now our hearts hunger for a home like the one our Oh-Neyel fathers and mothers remembered.

Hanif lost himself in the sunlit swirls of blue and white. Such a world could provide practically endless supplies of whatever Vangar needed, everything from food to the raw materials to build new Elfive worlds—or even entire navies of weapon-bristled star-vessels. During the generations since Hanif had acquired the machinery that had eventually given the People of Neyel mastery of both the stars and gravity, the [234] fact that such a place lay at the bottom of a steep, Aerthlike gravity well now posed no serious difficulties.

Rather, their main problem had been exactly as the officer of the watch had framed it—the finding of such a world. Habitable planets were rare baubles indeed in the cauldron of violence that comprised the local stellar group, so far distant from the Great Pinwheel wherein Ancient Aerth lay forever lost.

“Prepare to dispatch survey expeditions,” the drech’tor said. “I will require a complete inventory of this world’s usable resources as soon as possible.”

The officer of the watch nodded, his tough gray hide rasping against itself as he passed Hanif’s order down to one of the sergeants, a female who had lost her tail to an EV accident a few months earlier. The new limb seemed to be growing back nicely.

The sergeant hesitated.

Hanif lofted his thick brows. “Is there a problem?”

She took another moment to find her voice. “The ... the world beneath us seems already to be inhabited by sentients.”

The drech’tor frowned. He suddenly realized that he hadn’t given that possibility sufficient thought. It had been so long since any alien species had posed any serious challenge to the Neyel People as they used their Efti’el technology to move Vangar wherever they willed in M’jallanish Space ...

“What level of attainment have these sentients reached?” Hanif wanted to know.

“The long-range probes showed evidence of cities, as well as heavy industries and their burnings. Iron foundries and the like. Apparently wet navies sail on their oceans.”

“Have they space vessels? Orbital defenses?”

The sergeant shook her head. “No evidence of such. Nor have we detected any nukes, or even telecom activity.”

Hanif recalled a descriptive term he’d encountered long ago in one of the Elder texts: Iron Age.

The officer of the watch bared his teeth in a war-grin that [235] would have done an older, more properly blooded officer proud. His tail switched back and forth as though in anticipation of the battle to come. “When do we attack?”

The drech’tor adjusted himself in his seat, relieving his aching back. He had been thinking the same thing himself, when a more subtle idea occurred to him.

“Not right away,” Hanif said, returning the younger Neyel’s grin.

“Are we not to send out the survey vessels then?” the injured sergeant said, looking confused.

“Send them,” said Hanif. “Let us learn the hearts of these indigies first. We may be able to help them even as we enjoy their world’s bounty. Such largesse from us could win considerable gratitude from them.”

The officer of the watched looked stunned, as though he’d just borne witness to an unspeakable heresy. “Sir? I must respectfully remind the drech’tor that the makings of an empire are down there, awaiting us. We can put those resources to far better use than can the backward indigies.”

Ah, impertinent, stupid youth.

Drech’tor Hanif Wafiyy leaned forward and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “Exactly so. And who better to construct such an empire for us than the multitudes who already populate its provinces?”

“How long has it been since the aliens landed on the lawn of the Deliberative Althing, Wataryn? Fifteen years?” g’Isen wanted to know.

Présider Wataryn considered his trusted advisor’s question in silence. Long enough for the Neyel to have raised great numbers of their ilk in their enclaves all around the planet.

G’Isen, ever the apologist for the newcomers, was apparently just warming up. “Presider, when will you finally accept that the Neyel may be exactly what they seem to be?”

[236] What special covert promises have the Neyel made to you, g’Isen? Wealth? Guarantees of star travel for your younglings?

Wataryn turned his back on g’Isen, moving toward the wide window that encircled his office. Glass, the Oghen people’s Neyel benefactors had called the clear, thin, silicate stuff. The substance had been unknown on Oghen before the coming of the Neyel. Even now, the aliens continued teaching the people how to create still more exotic construction materials.