"And where do you think we should get?" Krake demanded.
"That's up to you, Francis. You're the captain. But as long as we're just sitting here, there's something I'd like to do."
Krake gave him a weary look, but all he said was, "What is it?"
The face on Marco's belly plate was suddenly eager. "All that stuff outside—I'd like to see it."
Krake's expression turned puzzled. "Look away," he said, waving a hand at the screens.
"No, Captain, that's not what I mean. I want to get outside the ship," he explained. "I want to watch what's happening out in this universe for myself. Not on a screen. I want to see the real thing."
Sue-ling said quickly, "But, Marco, that's dangerous. The radiation out there can be lethal!"
Marco waved a reassuring tentacle at her. "Not for us, Dr. Quong. We're almost as good as the Turtles when it comes to radiation—and they soak it up." He felt a stirring of Daisy Fay's touch on his, and gave her a quick look. It was true; she was beginning to respond again. The face had reappeared on her belly screen, looking puzzled, looking sad—but looking like Daisy Fay once more.
Sue-ling said uncertainly, "But don't you need to breathe, at least?"
"Of course we do, but we can take air tanks, and we'll seal our shells—we'll be all right. And it's important to me! I want to go out onto the hull and see for myself." He hesitated. Then, "You see, Sue-ling, ever since I was a kid in Chile I've wanted to know about these strange things. And nobody— nobody!—has ever had this chance before. And I want to observe it with my own senses, not through the simulations on the screens."
"And I," said Daisy Fay, suddenly coming to life, "want to go along." Her clasp on Marco was strong. "Please, Francis! Say we can do it! There's nothing to lose, and if we're all going to die here anyway—" She hesitated, and the face on her belly seemed to swallow. Then she managed a smile. "At least, then we won't have lived for nothing."
Outside the lock the two machine-people clung together, tentacles intertwined, eyes roving over the frightening sky. Daisy Fay snapped their tethers tight, for fear that any motion might send them plunging outward—downward—into that vast maelstrom of swarming suns. She knew that she was afraid. But, gazing out into those swelling clouds of glowing gas with Marco by her side, she was also beginning to be— well, very nearly—content once more.
The only thing missing, she thought, was that with their shells sealed against the vacuum, their air coming from the tanks they held in one spare tentacle each, it was impossible for them to talk. Yet what was there to say? Stalked eyes open wide—wider than any human's, because those Turtle-built optics could read frequencies far outside the human optical range —they saw the gamma radiation from far suns exploding, watched the near stars that were fattened with infalls of condensing gas and dust. It was frightening, yes. But it was also spectacularly, inconceivably beautiful.
And she felt Marco's firm, loving touch on her body as they huddled together, limbs intertwined . . . and that was all that mattered.
When she looked back to check their tethers, she could see, in the light from that ocean of stars, the pallid shape of that American flag Krake had insisted on painting on the hull of The Golden Hind. It was a reassuring sight, in a way, with its memories of home . . . but a saddening one, too. She faced up to reality. Never again, she told herself, could there be any hope of returning to that old and long lost America. . . .
But the next thing she told herself was that that chance had disappeared, long ago, on the freezing side of an Andean mountain. She nesded closer to Marco's hard, reassuring shell and let that thought slip away. Whatever would happen was going to happen.
For this present moment, she could see that Marco was happy, his eyes darting around, his tentacles quivering with excitement. Most important of all, they were together.
How long they hung there, silent and content, neither Marco nor Daisy Fay knew . . . until there was a rasping vibration from the hull of the ship. It wasn't mechanical. It was a sound, coming to them through conduction in the metal.
They stirred, eyestalks turning to look at each other in wonder. Then both realized that the sound was a voice—slow and hoarsely deep, carried by the vibrations of the hull to their own bodies. It had to be Krake's, Daisy Fay was nearly sure, and quickly deduced what had happened. The captain had rigged a speaker to the hull to reach them. Ponderously slowly, it was saying: "Come . . . back . . . inside. . . .
We're . . . going ... to go . . . into . . . wave-drive . . . again ... at once."
Back at the controls, Daisy Fay at her own position at the other board, Marco was happier than he had been in a very long time. That enriching view had been worth all the fears and pains and losses; the young South American boy that he had once been would have gladly died for such a sight, and his grown-up avatar had not forgotten the yearning.
There was a new sense of purpose in the rest of the Hind's people, too. Daisy Fay was herself again, Sork Quintero wholly sober. Even the Turtles were standing there—dour and silent, yes, but somehow it seemed that Kiri had wheedled them back into the society of their shipmates.
Marco turned for orders. "Course, Captain?"
"No course," said Krake, surrendering to the inevitable, managing a sardonic grin. "We're doing what the Taur tells us."
And when Marco gave Moon Bunderan a questioning look, she said, "Thrayl's really sick, Marco, but I think I got the drift of what he was trying to say. He said we didn't have to be traveling to a place. We won't be traveling to a 'place' at all, but in time. I'm not real sure I understood all of it, though; that kind of talk is hard for him," she apologized, "because Thrayl doesn't usually think that way, but it's what he meant. I'm sure of it."
"He means traveling in time, all right," Sork said suddenly. "I think I know what he's talking about—time dilation! Remember? Photons don't have clocks. Time stops for us in wave-drive, but it goes right on in the universe outside. So maybe Thrayl thinks if we just keep going long enough something big will happen in the universe. . . . Ask him, Moon," he begged. "Ask him if that's what he means!"
Everyone else waited while she spoke, softly and lovingly, to the Taur. Thrayl was silent for a long time. When at last he answered he hardly lifted his head, and his voice was a bass moan.
Moon looked confused. "He's very sad," she said. "He keeps hearing songs of pain and danger that hurt him."
"Time!" Sork snapped. "What did he say about that?"
"I think he said you were right, Sork. I think he said a time was coming when something would happen . . . only," she added, the look of bewilderment getting stronger, "I don't think he meant 'coming.' It almost seemed as though he meant 'returning'—but time can't return, can it?" she pleaded.
Krake looked more unhappy than ever. He looked for help toward the morosely silent Turtles, but they were not responding—unless Litlun's faint movement of one clawed hand was assent.
Krake made up his mind. He took a deep breath and gestured to the crew manning the boards. "Wave-drive, Marco," he said. "Wherever we're going, we might as well get on our way."
What the Taur hadn't said—or couldn't—was how long they would have to travel to get to wherever, or whenever, they were heading for.
That was a hard pill for Captain Francis Krake to swallow. He sat glaring up at the screens, ignoring everyone else. When he looked away he saw nothing that pleased him. The two Turtles had retreated again for more of their private discussions—or mourning. Sork Quintero was at the other board, gazing abstractedly into space, while across the control room Sue-ling was sitting alone, silent and strained, and she was resolutely avoiding Krake's gaze. Krake swore silently to himself. What was the matter with the woman? What had hap-pcncd between them in his cabin was something warm and wonderful in his memory—what had changed her?