“It’s because of Tinker size and Tinker structure,” Chan said suddenly. “I remember it from twenty years ago, when I was working with a Tinker Composite on Travancore. I never saw the effect myself, but isn’t there some kind of Tinker stress/stability relation?”
“There is indeed.” The Angel produced from its speech synthesizer a sigh very like a human’s. “As a Tinker Composite grows in size, it also grows in intelligence. That is well-known. What is less commonly known is that with increased intelligence comes greater sophistication in handling threats to a Tinker’s own safety. Unfortunately, the converse holds true. Reduce the number of components and the Composite decreases in stability. Now, as I understand it, Eager Seeker was originally an unusually large Composite. But soon after arrival on Limbo, a substantial fraction was detached to form Blessed Union, and went ashore.”
“That’s what I was told,” Bony said, then felt embarrassed because he had butted in. He muttered, “But it never came back.”
“And Eager Seeker went at that point from being a large to a somewhat small Composite. Yet more components were lost when the shore party was exploring. A reduced Composite, subjected to unexpected stresses at such a time, seeks safety using a mechanism ingrained through all of Tinker evolution: solitation.”
“It flies apart,” Chan said softly. “Disperses.”
“Worse than that. A Tinker can normally disperse at any time, and then reassemble. But a Tinker who suffers solitation will never come together again as an ensemble without assistance. The components eat, and they can still breed. But they form an uncoupled host of mindless and solitary components.” The Angel stirred, as though the sentient crystalline Singer within the vegetable of the Chassel-Rose imagined its own irrevocable separation of parts.
“It’s death for the Composite,” Liddy said. She clutched Bony’s hand. “It may not sound like it, but it is.”
“Which means that Deb is alone on shore.” Chan looked at Dag Korin. “She was waiting for Eager Seeker to come back, but it’s not going to happen. And while she waits there she’s a sitting target for whatever got Chrissie and Tarbush.”
“No.” The General shook his head. “I know where you’re heading with your thinking, Dalton, but I won’t allow it.”
“I could go solo. Danny’s back, and the ship is safe.”
“Not a chance. It would be crazy for you to try, at night and in unexplored terrain. Deb Bisson is a smart woman, too smart to do anything stupid. She won’t risk anything at night. She’ll lie low until morning. Then like as not she’ll decide that she can’t wait any longer for Eager Seeker, and head back here.”
“I think I ought to go.”
“And I’m pulling rank and telling you, for the last time, you’re not going. Get a grip, man.” Korin stood up, went to the metal bureau in the corner of the room, and opened the doors. “Casement wants a drink, and you should have one, too. We all should. Come on, Dalton, relax. We’re all here, and Deb Bisson is safe ashore. Not a damn thing is going to happen, here or there, until morning.”
Korin picked up a bottle, opened it, and began to pour Santory single-malt whiskey into a line of small rounded glasses.
As he did so, a loud buzzing drone rang through the whole ship. Once again it signaled for emergency action. Something, it said, was in the main airlock of the Hero’s Return.
28: DEB’S DILEMMA
Deb had listened to Chrissie and Tarbush’s logic for their being the advance scouts. She had been unable to refute it, but that didn’t mean she was happy with the situation.
When they left, crawling cautiously away through the waist-high ground cover, her need to see , to know where they were and what was happening to them, grew stronger.
Vow-of-Silence was lucky. She could look through the periscope. Eager Seeker was more fortunate yet. The Tinker could release inconspicuous individual components, each one able to fly high, examine the situation, and return to integrate its findings into the Composite. Deb and Danny alone were information starved. Even if Deb grabbed the periscope she was not tall enough to look over the top of the ridge.
She stood it for about five minutes, during which Vow-of-Silence’s remarks were basically one comment repeated over and over: “There is no sign of them. They must be proceeding through the vegetation.” Finally she could take it no longer.
She said to Danny, “Stay here and keep your eyes and ears open. I’m going to creep along to the ridge, and just take a peek over.”
He raised his eyebrows, and his wrinkled face looked far from happy; but he nodded, and before he could offer any other reaction she was off, snaking into the brush along the line marked by Chrissie and Tarbush. She came to the band of lurid green that spanned the way ahead, with its assortment of dead and dying animals strung along it like beads on a necklace. She followed Chrissie’s lead in detouring to pass well clear.
She was keeping her head well down and she sensed rather than saw when she crossed the brow of the ridge. Ahead of her, if Vow-of-Silence’s report was correct, the ground sloped down toward the encampment. Thirty yards in front of Deb the vegetation cover would end and be replaced by bare and sterile rock.
That was as far as Chrissie and Tarbush were supposed to go. If Deb peeked out over the top of the plants she should be able to see them.
She parted the ferny top growth as delicately as her suit gloves would permit, wrinkled her nose at the smell of lavender gone rotten, and slowly raised her head.
And gasped.
What were those two idiots playing at? They were far beyond the cover of the plants, walking toward the fenced encampment. Hadn’t they listened to one word of her orders?
Then she saw the third one, way in front of them. It was a human male, and he was wearing the same kind of suit as Bony Rombelle. Friday Indigo, it had to be — there was no other candidate in this whole universe. Indigo was waving, and now Deb could tell that he was speaking though she couldn’t make out any words. Chrissie was talking back to him — and she and Tarbush were still walking, nearer and nearer to the fence around the alien camp.
Deb wanted to shout a warning, but if she did that her own position would be revealed. She watched, gloved hand over her mouth, as Chrissie and Tarbush and Friday Indigo went on, to the gate in the fence and through it. At that point Tarbush and Chrissie stopped. Chrissie took a step backward. Friday Indigo raised his arm and pointed, toward the encampment and the buildings that bordered the airstrip.
Deb saw three creatures, each as big as Tarbush — and he was a very big man. They had broad, blue-black carapaces, held almost level, and lots of legs. Deb didn’t have time to count them, because one pair of the aliens’ formidable front claws were lifting high. They held thick black sticks whose highly polished curved surfaces gleamed in the bright sunlight.
Tarbush and Chrissie were moving, racing away from the fence and back across the bare rocky plain. They were almost at the edge of the dense plant cover when the air between them and the crouching aliens shimmered like a heat haze.
Chrissie went down. Tarbush was already diving forward into the plants, but he fell a few feet short. Neither one moved as the armed aliens cautiously approached and bent over them. Friday Indigo stood as still as a statue, back by the fence. Deb did the same, hidden by the covering fringe of ferns. She heard a strange wailing cry from behind her. Danny, or Vow-of-Silence? Fortunately, the aliens took no notice. Two of them squatted down by folding their supporting legs — ten each, Deb counted — and easily lifted the unconscious humans.