Sork wasn't good at making plans, and he knew it. Planning anything complicated always involved so many factors that Sork was sure to leave something out, forget some detail. It took the full concentration of all of Sork's quite high intelligence to perceive a goal and devise a way to get to it—and then it took endless, repetitive going over and over every possible relevant fact before he could be sure he hadn't overlooked something.
His brother Kiri, of course, could see a whole tree of relevances in a single glance and unerringly identify every bond. If Kiri hadn't been his brother, Sork Quintero would surely have resented him intensely.
On the other hand, what Kiri could not do was act. In that quality Sork was superb. Once he had a plan complete he could not be swerved from it.
The plan that was forming in Sork's mind was certain to be —he thought it was certain to be—both sensible and complete. But to make sure, he stalked impatiently back and forth in front of the hospital, rehearsing his arguments; and when Krake came out, followed by Sue-ling Quong, Sork aggressively positioned himself in their way.
"You're Krake," he said, making sure. "You're going to your ship."
The space captain looked at him curiously before agreeing. "Yes, that's where I'm going," he said, "as soon as I make arrangements for Moon and her Taur—if that doesn't take too long. IVe got to see how my crew is coming along. The Turtles up in the orbit station aren't saying much!"
Sork wasn't listening. Impatiently he put his hand on Krake's chest; the space captain looked surprised, but didn't resist. Sork gestured at the desolate scene around them.
"You must help us. Look at those things!" Sork cried, waving an arm toward the abandoned cars of scrap. "Isn't it appalling? IVe watched them go for years—all sorts of things that belong to humanity—gantries from the abandoned space launching sites, giant magnets from supercolliders, all sorts of old research equipment, and it's all disappearing into space. The Turdes have stolen our science!"
Sue-ling was frowning at him. "Please, Sork. The captain has other things on his mind. That stuff is all out of date anyway. Nobody bothers with those things anymore, because Turtle technology is better."
"Turtle science belongs to the Turtles!" he snapped at her, and back immediately to the waveship captain. "Krake, please! YouVe got to help us!"
The space captain was doing his best to be patient with this intense young man. He was not succeeding. "That's all very well, Mr. Quintero, but there isn't anything I can do about Earth science, is there? What do I know about it? The last time I was on Earth nobody even thought of going into space, and I never heard of these—what do you call them— supercolliders and all that. It's my crew I've got to care for."
Sork would not be diverted. He said firmly, "Listen. If the Turtles are all going to die off, then we must learn how to travel in interstellar space ourselves. That's where your duty is."
Krake gave him a hostile stare. "My duty?"
Sork sighed and spelled it out logically for this obstinate man. "It is your duty, because you're the only human being who knows how to fly a turtle waveship! Human science was picking up a lot of momentum before the Turtles came, even if you didn't see it yourself, with rockets and computers and—"
Krake stopped him, puzzled. "Computers?"
"Machines that solved problems. Machines that helped people think. Only once the Turtles showed up with the memo disks, nobody needed computers any more. So now all those things are lost. We're going to have to learn to use Turtle technology to get our birthright back, and that's where you come in. Take us along to space!"
He stopped there. He had put forward the case with total logic; now it was up to Francis Krake to respond.
But the waveship captain wasn't responding. Krake looked around at the others, as though seeking their help in dealing with this persistent man.
Sue-ling Quong broke the silence. "I think," she said hesitantly, "that Sork's right in a way, Captain Krake. You are a pretty special resource for the human race right now."
Krake was aghast. "But Dr. Quong! What are you getting at? You don't want me to take you along into space, do you?"
"I do!" cried Sork, answering for her. "We all do!"
Krake looked at him as at a child who had asked to be handed the Moon. "You're as bad as Moon Bunderan. You simply don't understand what you're asking. Once you take off in a wave-drive ship at relativistic speeds you're committed. It's a one-way trip in time. You'll be leaving everything!"
"Yes, of course," Sork said impadendy. "For a period we will, until we return to help humanity to be reborn."
"For a long period of time! It may be centuries. Why do you think I never came back to Earth before this? Because as soon as I had been in space a few weeks, while the Turtles were still interrogating me and the others, I discovered that everybody I had known on Earth was old or dead. Decades had passed. My crew and I were forgotten."
"But you see, Krake," Sork said flatly, "we don't have anyone to leave behind."
"There's Kiri," Sue-ling put in. Sork blinked at her.
"Oh," he said, "I'm sure Kiri will come with us. He always does."
And of course Kiri agreed at once, comfortable with doing whatever his brother chose for them to do, content to explore a new facet of the always fascinating whole that was life. The real surprise was that the young woman from New Mexico insisted on joining them. She was immovable on the subject. "You must take us! I can't stay here, Captain Krake—I'm afraid of that Turde they call Lidun. What if he finds some way of taking Thrayl away from me?"
"He can't do that," Krake said, trying to reassure her—and trying, for one more time, to prevent her from making a terrible, irrevocable mistake . . . though inside him there was a part of his heart that leaped with pleasure at the thought of having flesh-and-blood human companions again. Especially a young female one who looked more and more like the long-dead Madeleine. Then he added, thinking it over, "Well, I don't think he can take your Taur away from you, anyway—"
"But you never know, with Turtles, do you?" She pressed his arm persuasively. "You say we'll just be gone a few weeks, but fifty or a hundred years will have passed? By then maybe there won't be any more Turtles."
"Not many, at least. They won't be running things anymore, there won't be enough of them."
"Then there won't be all those memmies, doing better than ordinary people can?" She turned to gaze up at the kind, broad face of her Taur. "Then maybe we won't have to follow their orders about Taurs anymore, will we?"
Krake studied them, the tiny girl and the great horned beast. Prudence fought longing in his mind. Prudence lost. "If you're all sure this is what you want, then—" surrendering —"all right."
Moon searched his face. "Are you sure?"
Krake, who was not at all sure—who had been surprised to hear his own mouth form the words "all right"—grimaced. "Let's just do it before I change my mind," he said sourly. "We'll need extra food, more supplies—well, we can arrange all that at the orbit station. We'll take a car up the space ladder."
"Right away," Moon Bunderan said firmly.
"Well, why not?" said Krake, smiling at last. "Get your things, whatever you want to take with you, and we'll be on our way."
"All I need to take is Thrayl," Moon said, patting the Taur's broad back. The Taur turned and mooed at her, his great horns glowing bright. A cloud crossed her face as she listened.
"What did he just say?" Sork demanded.
She said slowly, "I don't entirely understand. He was listening to his song, and sometimes when he tells me what the singing was about I don't know what he means. He seems to think that we're doing the right thing, that it's important we go with you. But there's something else, too. I think—" She hesitated, then finished. "I think he said that because of what we do everything will change, in ways we cannot now understand."