“I can take a shot at answering some of those.”
Nenda rubbed at his cheek and chin as he provided Atvar H’sial with a summary of his own experiences since waking from the Lotus field. There was a three-or four-day stubble there, but that did not tell him much; he had no idea how fast hair grew inside the field. Some of what he told Atvar H’sial had to be guesswork.
“So if you believe Graves,” he concluded, “we’re still inside a hollow planetoid, goin’ round Gargantua. Same one as we were brought to after Summertide, for a bet. Graves says he’s got no more idea than we have as to why we were dragged here, or why we were stuck in the middle of that room like two drugged flies. You can be damn sure it wasn’t done for our benefit, though. I don’t know how long we were held there. Enough for Graves and the rest of ’em to get their hands on a ship after Summertide and fly it out to Gargantua. Don’t ask me where that computer with the strung-out brainbox came from. I never saw him before, or anything like him. Mebbe they brought him from Opal. I think they went back there before they started for here, because Birdie Kelly is with ’em, too.”
“I registered Kelly’s presence. Do not worry about him. Graves is the principal danger; also perhaps the embodied computer, but not Birdie Kelly.”
“Yeah. And Graves told me he wants to take us back home and charge us with lethal assault. He’ll do his best to keep us in one piece till then, otherwise he’d never have stopped me going back into the Lotus field for Kallik. Graves seems pretty sure he can take us back for trial, so there has to be at least one ship available — the one they came in, or the Have-It-All, or maybe both of ’em. We should be able to escape, if we can just find our way back to the surface.”
The great blind head was nodding, a foot from Nenda’s face. “Very good, Louis. So I have one more question: When should we choose to escape?”
“As soon as we can. It won’t be more than a couple of hours before Graves is on our trail again. Why hang around?”
“For one excellent reason.” Atvar H’sial swept a jointed forelimb in a long arc, covering the room they stood in. “Examine. I have not had time for a complete survey, but as I moved through the chambers of this planetoid I saw evidence of Builder technology unlike anything known to the spiral arm. This is a treasure house, a cornucopia of new equipment with a value too great to estimate. It can be ours, Louis.”
Nenda reached out and patted the Cecropian’s wrinkled proboscis. “Good old At. You never give up, do you? Ever. And people tell me I’m the greedy one. Got any ideas how we prevent interference from Graves?”
“Some. But first things first.” Atvar H’sial unfolded her legs and rose to her full height. “If profit is to be maximized, this must be treated as a multistage endeavor. We will need great capital to exploit this planetoid, and we must plan to return here when we have suitable financing. To obtain that, before we leave we must select a few items of machinery and equipment, small and light enough to take with us for trade to the richest worlds of the spiral arm. I could do that, but you are more experienced. And as soon as we have decided what to take, we must evade Julius Graves and his group, and leave.”
“Then we’d better get a move on, before they come looking.” Nenda reached out to grasp one of the Cecropian’s forelimbs, hoisting himself to his feet. “You’re right, I do like to price goodies. ’Specially when I know I won’t be paying for ’em. Let’s go to it, At, and pick ’em out.”
After the first few minutes Louis Nenda was willing to admit Cecropian superiority for the exploration of Glister. He could see dead ends easily enough, when the light level permitted. But Atvar H’sial, with her sensitive sonar and echolocation, could “see” around bends in corridors, and know ahead of time when she was approaching a large open area. And she did so just as well in total darkness.
Nenda did not bother after a while to peer ahead. He focused on what he was best at, walking behind Atvar H’sial and making a mental catalog of novel equipment and artifacts as they came to them. There was plenty of choice. In less than half an hour he reached forward and tapped her carapace.
“I think we’re done. I’ve tagged a dozen portable items, an’ I don’t think we can handle more than that.”
Atvar H’sial halted and the white head turned. “You are the expert on salable commodities; but I would like to hear your list.”
“All right. I’ll give ’em in order, top choice first. That little water-maker in the second room we looked at. Remember it? No sign of a power source, no sign of a supply. But five hundred cubic meters a minute of clean water production. You could name your own price for a few of them on Xerarchos or Siccity, or any of the dust worlds.”
“I agree. It was also a leading item on my own list. Do you know its mass?”
“I can lift it, that’s all I care about. Then for number-two choice, I liked that cubical box on gimbals three chambers back, the one with the open top and a blue haze over it.”
“Indeed? I observed that object. But I found nothing remarkable about it.”
“That’s because you don’t see using light. When I looked down into the open top I could see stars. But when I turned the box on the gimbals, I was looking at Gargantua, right through the planetoid. It’s an all-direction see-through — let’s you look at distant objects and not be bothered by near ones. It’d be marvelous for ship navigation in dust clouds.
“My number-three choice is harder to justify. The sphere, the one that was floating, not attached to anything, in the room we just left.”
“To my viewing it appeared entirely featureless.”
“To me, too. But it was a lot cooler than everything around it.”
“Which should be physically impossible.”
“That’s why we want it. Impossible gadgets are always the most valuable. I’ve no idea how it works, an’ I don’t care. But I can tell you a dozen places that would pay a lot for it, looking to maybe find a closed infinite heat sink. Number four—”
“Enough. I am persuaded. I accept your list. but there is one more thing that I would like to do, before we collect the items of choice and seek egress from the planetoid.” Atvar H’sial motioned in front of her with one forelimb. The yellow horns faced ahead, open as wide as they would go and scanning slowly from side to side. “There is another chamber ahead; a huge, open one, possessing anomalous acoustical properties. At certain frequencies, it appears completely empty. At others, I detect a spherical object at its center.”
“You think we might find something specially valuable? No point taking risks, just to be nosy.”
“I cannot estimate the value. I will only say that an object transparent at certain acoustic frequencies is as potentially valuable to Cecropian society as glass, transparent to certain frequencies of light, is to humans. I know exactly where we could sell such a discovery. To me, it might be the most precious thing on this world.”
Atvar H’sial was advancing slowly as she spoke, to a place where the tunnel ended in a blind drop. Nenda moved to her side and took a look down. After one startled glance he swore and stepped back. She had an indifference to heights that came from her remote flying ancestors, but he did not share it. They were on the brink of a twenty-meter drop, slowly curving away below to a bowl-shaped floor.
Atvar H’sial was pointing to the middle of the chamber. “There. Do you sense anything with your eyes?”
“Yeah. It’s a silver sphere.” Nenda took another step back. “I don’t like this, At. We oughta get out of here.”
“In one moment. To my senses, that sphere is changing. Do you observe it, also?”
Nenda, set to retreat, stood and stared in spite of himself.
Atvar H’sial was right. The sphere was changing while he watched. And in a way that tricked the eye. The whole surface began to ripple, like oscillations on a ball of mercury. Those vibrations became a pattern of standing waves, growing in amplitude until they changed the whole shape. A five-sided flowerlike head was sprouting above, while a slender barbed tail extended down toward the floor of the chamber.