"But?" Richard interjected sarcastically.
"Yeah, but," Ellen replied. "That's just it, Ian, we're all being drawn by that one big but. A bit of mystery has been set, and I'd like to get a look at what this Dr. Franklin Smith set in motion. I must say that the videos of him are quite compelling."
Ian smiled weakly at her. They had watched the 1100- year-old tape made by Joshua's onboard security system. It was badly damaged but computer enhancement had restored many of the details. Smith had been powerful- his charismatic energy rippling across the millennium. His ebony features had carried a sense of great intellect paired with a ruthless drive for survival. Yes, the romantic image from the past had held Ian in its sway as well.
"He's long dead," Ian replied. "And if the odds are correct, chances are all his people are dead, as well. Their ship was an exile unit, and overcrowded far beyond its bearing capacity. True, he was a charismatic leader, one of the moving forces for the Great Outward Leap, but for his particular unit the odds were near impossible. I think this Alpha / Omega is just another unit."
"But curiosity, the bane of any good historian, haunts you, doesn't it?" Ellen asked.
"All right, let's be logical," Ian replied. "First off, our ship's memory is packed to capacity. We wouldn't store another byte of data if we wanted to. We've been out over four months, and it will take nearly that long to return."
"If this crate holds up," a voice said over the PA loud speaker.
" Ahh, yeah, thanks for the encouraging reminder, Stasz." Ian looked up at the forward viewscreen, which was suddenly filled with the image of their grinning pilot, who had obviously been indulging with Richard.
"I thought this little room was my private domain!" Ian shouted. "First Richard, then Ellen, now you listening in. So where the hell is Shelley?"
"Right here, Ian." And the doorway slid open so that she drifted in to join them. "I was listening in on the intercom. There's been an open channel out of your cub byhole for months, but you never knew it."
Oh, great. Then they had heard his mutterings in pri vate, when he thought he was hiding from the rest of them. He suddenly realized with a flush of embarrassment that Shelley and the rest must have heard some of the com ments he had mumbled of late concerning Shelley, as well.
He looked up at her and the moment of eye contact was enough. She blushed and he quickly turned away, and the other three chuckled.
"Highly unethical, some of the things you've said to yourself," Ellen admonished.
"Let's get back to the subject," Ian interrupted, trying to regain control of the conversation. "As Stasz reminds us on every single jump, there is a probability of disaster built into the Alpha-class spacecraft. We've been lucky. One more successful jump and we could be home."
"Or one jump to Delta Sag, which is only seven light-years away," Shelley replied. "We could check out the vicinity, and then head for home. It will only add a month and a half to the journey."
Ian realized that they were merely voicing the argument that he'd wrestled with all day. Joshua had shaken him up. He had never expected something quite so chill ing. But he was curious, as well. He had never orbited another star. Not surprising-he'd hardly ever been off- campus. They would in fact be the first survey vessel ever to orbit the Delta Sag binary. And since a number of colony vessels had headed in this direction, there was the possibility that they might find something.
"Come on, Ian," Shelley said softly. "Let's do it."
Ellen gave him a nudge and offered the flask.
"But you're almost out of forms," Ian said jokingly.
"I'll improvise. Hell, Ian, you've made my career on this journey. I never thought it possible that I'd ever profit from knowing you."
"Say, Ian, when she gets rich and famous, we should go to some conference and pass the word about what C.C. means."
Ellen turned with a roundhouse punch, and Richard jerked aside, just barely missed losing his teeth. As Rich ard ducked, Ian was able to observe the absurd effects created by trying to punch someone in zero G.
It took Shelley several minutes to subdue Ellen and pull her out of the room.
"Not nice, Richard," Ian said admonishingly.
"But it was fun."
Knowing that the intercom line was hot, Ian didn't reply immediately. After thinking their situation over for a few minutes, he said, "All right, Stasz, punch us up for Delta Sag. But this time I think I'll stay back here with the flask and ride it out."
And when the drive finally kicked in with a vision- blurring jolt, Ian could barely tell if it was the gin or distortion that caused him to black out.
When the detection alarm kicked in, Ian and Shelley were hunched over the display board examining some of the records from Unit 287. For two weeks they had spent every waking moment checking out the video recordings and the historical data stored aboard the vessel. Ian was still in a state near shock over the library, where he had discovered thousands of works believed to have been lost in the Holocaust War.
The names of authors whose works were till now un known scrolled across the catalog display, and Ian muttered with frustration when he tried to decide which to examine first.
"Look at these," Ian had cried. "The discovery of just one of these books would have been worthy of note, and we've found thousands. It will revolutionize our under standing of pre-Holocaust literature."
Shelley hung over his shoulder and watched as the names and works flashed across the screen.
"Who was this Mailer?" she asked.
"Someone obscure, I've read that his works are noth ing but worthless mutterings."
"Then if that's the case, with our memory filled to capacity, shouldn't we dump him? I mean, Richard, Stasz, and Ellen are all howling for memory space."
"Yeah, maybe you're right," Ian replied, and he pushed the erase button to make room for something of more value.
"What about this Akhmedov? I never heard of him either."
"Good heavens, girl, and you my grad-ass ahh, I mean assistant. I should have you go back and reread your texts." And it was at that moment that the alarm kicked in.
Stasz quickly hit the override and within minutes they had gathered forward to see what was to come.
"No beacon functioning on this one," Stasz reported to the assembled crew, "but it's the biggest I've ever seen. Her mass triggered the alarm. She's only about five hundred A.U. off our main course, heading for Delta Sag. Should we jump down and check it out?"
Ian looked around and shrugged his shoulders. "What the hell?" he murmured. And turning, he went back to the computer board aft to ride out the velocity shifts and the gut-popping downshift to sublight.
"So that explains the mass," Stasz said. "There're two of them riding together."
They were on final approach, and the confusing shape of what appeared to be a triple torus mated to a Bernal sphere had finally, at closer examination, resolved itself into two distinct and different vessels.
"Shelley, can you get a clear design printout of this?" Ian asked.
Shelley ran the radar imaging through the computer file, and after several minutes of cross-matching with their records, the probable design and ship's data finally came up on the screen.
"Ian?"
"Yes?"
"What the hell is Albania?"
"Albania?" He floated over to Shelley's side and peered over her shoulder. He noticed that there was a faint but pleasant scent to her hair, and for a second his thoughts were diverted.
"What is it?" Ellen asked, and as he looked across at her Ian realized that she had noticed his diversion and he felt somewhat flustered.
Albania? Faint memories were stirred of old maps of southeastern Europe. He wasn't sure, but he had a rec ollection that they were some crazy nationalist group out of the Balkans. A number of ethnic groups had founded colonies in that final decade before the Holocaust, as an attempt to preserve their culture if the war finally came. So this then must be an ethnic preservation unit. He chuckled softly at the image of the Albanians greeting him at the door wearing gawdy peasant garb and gyrating to bizarre folk music.