Then she navigated down the menus until she found a little image of herself and she picked it up and deposited it outside the whole sphere.
The airlock below her blew outward in a big bubble, which opened, swallowed her and her display and closed again. From outside it she suddenly heard a tremendous crunching sound, like a giant's molars consuming a building. And she was moving.
That was okay; she knew where she was going. Rue was in charge of her ship at last.
"IT'S LENGTHENING OUT," said the staffer. "Becoming more cylindrical." Michael could see that with his own eyes now. The black surface was bulking up in places, then the bulges subsided again. It looked for all the world like a man dressing in a too-small survival bag.
"Sir?" asked Barendts.
"Hang on," said Crisler. "I need to know what it's doing."
"The heat signatures are intense," said the staffer. "We're getting radar showing all kinds of turmoil in there, sir. Very large masses in rapid motion."
"What kind? I need more information, damn it."
"Um… I think it would be unwise to send anyone in there at this time, sir. They'd be minced."
A space-suited figure jetted over to Michael. "What do you think?" asked Herat over a private channel.
"She triggered some kind of transformation, that's for sure," said Michael. "But it doesn't make any sense, based on where we were on the sequence. The Lasa were asking us something about how our life is organized, but why would the answer lead to this?"
"Maybe they're like the autotrophs," said Herat. "If we replied that we ate life like them, they might go ballistic. After all, wouldn't that be a major part of their assessment? Seeing what kind of risk we are?"
"I prefer not to believe that they're paranoid, sir."
"You prefer to think she's still alive," said Herat quietly. "So do I, Michael."
"We need to do something!"
"I know. But I don't know what."
The habitat had finished reshaping itself. It was much bigger now and shaped like a shaggy can. Now something started to bud away from one end. A large sphere, black as everything else, but…
Michael spotted a little dot of red on that sphere. The dot grew to become a letter of Lasa writing. Then a whole word emerged.
"The habitat's reappearing!" he shouted.
"I'll be damned," whispered Herat. "It's squirting itself out."
Over the next several minutes, the original Lasa habitat emerged from the end of the black cylinder. The black liquid was draining off it in an orderly way. The habitat seemed unchanged by the strange transformation that had taken place.
"It's given birth," said Herat. He began to laugh. "And what a bunch of nervous fathers we were!"
"Keep the lasers ready," said Crisler. "Marines, check out the Lasa sphere."
"Sir." The squad jetted away, the mesobot following them. Michael watched them approach the red-lettered sphere from its perspective. His head was spinning. Just what had happened here?
The marines found the airlock, now reverted back to its original condition. They stuck some periscopes through it, then one pushed the mesobot in. Michael's view suddenly went black, then came back as the little bot entered the interhull.
Except it was an interhull no longer. The interior of the black Lasa sphere was almost empty— just a smooth collection of arcing reflections from the metal walls. There were only two objects in here now.
One was a large black sphere of roiling ferrofluid, maybe eight meters across. It drifted near the far end of the sphere.
The other object was harder to figure out. It glowed with faery light, even seeming to have wings, or fans of auroral light around it. It too was a sphere, only this sphere was made of crystal or glass.
Inside it Rue Cassels moved in a slow but purposeful dance. Her space suit's helmet was off and he could clearly see the huge grin on her face.
"She's alive," he said.
"Sir, look! The black, it's peeling off the cylinder now!"
Michael brought his view back from the mesobot. Spotlights had the new cylinder outlined and in their glow he could clearly see the black liquid draining away from a bright metal hull. As it crept away from the end caps of the cylinder it revealed glass and the spotlights refracted into some kind of open interior.
"It's a habitat," murmured Herat. "It's built us a habitat."
"Yes, Professor."
It was Rue. Her voice sounded dreamy, jubilant. "It built us a new home, according to my specs. And it's showed me the origin of Jentry's Envy and its course. This habitat is for humans, Professor. It's ours, as part of the Lasa's crew. Jentry's Envy was a gift all along, you see. All we had to do was unwrap it."
Michael turned on his jets and headed for the Lasa habitat. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Herat jetting toward the new one— curiosity getting the better of him, as always. Crisler was shouting for them to remain where they were, but Michael just wanted to make sure Rue was all right and tell her how happy he was that she had succeeded at finding her dream and desperate necessity.
"Decant Max," shouted Rue. "Bring 'em all out! We're going to have a damned big party! And then Jentry's Envy is open for business!"
Behind Michael, Crisler and his men didn't move. For once, the admiral gave no orders.
PART FOUR
Dinner with the Autotroph
18
RUE AWOKE TO the sound of birdsong.
It was something she had heard in recordings, or synthesized, many times. The first time she'd heard live birds was on Treya; the second time, on Chandaka.
Then this must be the planet Oculus, at Colossus. She opened her eyes.
A billowing canopy of pale blue silk hung over her bed, extravagant as something from history. The bed was a four-poster, strictly for use under gravity. Her head was embraced by a luxuriously soft pillow.
She stretched and yawned. Other than the birds, there was no sound; no fans, or pumps, or footsteps overhead. No wonder she had slept so well, despite the heat in this room.
Sitting up, Rue spotted her clothes neatly folded on a nearby chair. This was her first awakening at Colossus and yet she was not surrounded by doctors, nor was she shivering in a cold-sleep vat waiting to be tended to. She didn't feel a million years old like she had every other time she emerged from cold sleep— in fact, she felt great.
Her feet touched down in deep warm pile carpet. This room was at least seven meters on a side and almost that tall. One entire wall was taken up with high, leaded-glass windows; there were French doors there as well. Rue dressed without looking at her clothes; her eyes were fixed on the vista outside.
She needed to go to the bathroom, but there was no way she was doing that before she got past those windows. She turned the handle on the doors and they opened to let in a beautifully cool breeze. The air smelled of ice and bare rock, like the penumbral mountains at Treya. Eagerly Rue stepped out onto a wide balcony.
A quick glance told her she was halfway up the side of a gigantic building perched on an equally huge cliff. Then she turned her attention to what lay beyond.
The sky at Treya had been alive with clouds. This sky was alive in a completely different way. The whole firmament glowed with sunset mauve and peach, but these colors didn't radiate from the horizon the way sunset had on Chandaka. Rather, at the zenith hung a round golden disk, its edges perfectly sharp. She could look straight at it without difficulty. Near this disk the sky was a lovely peach color, becoming rose, purple, dark blue and finally black at the horizon.
A brilliant aurora danced throughout this beautiful sky. Wavering curtains of light at the horizon, the auroral bands became coiling serpents when directly overhead. The combination of firmament and aurora laid fairy light over a seascape that stretched away to incredible distance before her.