Tuf Voyaging

Day and night are meaningless aboard a starship, but the ancient rhythms of the human body still made their demands, and technology had to conform. Therefore the Cornucopia, like all but the huge triple-shift warships and transcorp liners, had its sleep cycle—a time of darkness and silence.

Rica Dawnstar rose from her cot and checked her needler, from long force of habit. Celise Waan was snoring loudly; Jefri Lion tossed and turned, winning battles in his head; Kaj Nevis was lost in dreams of wealth and power. The cybertech was sleeping too, though it was a deeper sort of sleep. To escape the boredom of the voyage, Anittas had parked on a cot, plugged into the ship’s computer, and turned himself off. His cyberhalf monitored his biohalf. His breath was slow as a glacier and very regular, his body temperature down, his energy consumption cut to almost nothing, but the lidless silver-metal sensors that served him as eyes sometimes seemed to shift slightly, tracking some unseen vision.

Rica Dawnstar moved quietly from the room. Up in the control chamber, Haviland Tuf sat alone. His lap was full of gray tomcat; his huge pale hands moved over the computer keys. Havoc, the smaller black-and-white cat, was playing around his feet. She had gotten hold of a light pencil and was batting it to and fro on the floor. Tuf never heard Rica enter; no one heard Rica Dawnstar move unless she wanted them to hear.

“You’re still up,” she said from the door, leaning back against the jamb.

Tuf’s seat swiveled around and he regarded her impassively. “A most remarkable deduction,” he said. “Here I sit before you, active, busy, driven by the demands of my ship. From the scant evidence of your eyes and ears, you leap to the conclusion that I am not yet asleep. Your powers of reasoning are awesome.”

Rica Dawnstar sauntered into the room and stretched out on Tuf’s cot, still neatly made up from the previous sleep cycle. “I’m awake too,” she said, smiling.

“I can scarcely believe it,” said Haviland Tuf.

“Believe it,” Rica said. “I don’t sleep much, Tuf. Two or three hours a night. It’s an asset in my profession.”

“No doubt,” said Tuf.

“On board ship, though, it’s a bit of a liability. I’m bored, Tuf.”

“A game, perhaps?”

She smiled. “Perhaps of a different sort.”

“I am always eager to learn new games.”

“Good. Let’s play the conspiracy game.”

“I am unfamiliar with its rules.”

“Oh, they’re simple enough.”

“Indeed. Perhaps you would be good enough to elaborate.” Tuf’s long face was still and noncommittal.

“You would never have won that last game if Waan had thrown in with me when I asked her to,” Rica said conversationally. “Alliances, Tuf, can be profitable to all parties concerned. You and I are the odd ones out here. We’re the hirelings. If Lion is right about the plague star, the rest of them will divide wealth so vast it’s incomprehensible, and you and I will receive our fees. Doesn’t seem quite fair to me.”

“Equity is often difficult to judge, and still more difficult to achieve,” said Haviland Tuf. “I might wish my compensation were more generous, but no doubt many could make the same complaint. It is nonetheless the fee that I negotiated and accepted.”

“Negotiations can be reopened,” suggested Rica Dawnstar. “They need us. Both of us. It occurred to me that if we worked together, we might be able to … ah … insist upon better terms. Full shares. A six-way split. What do you think?”

“An intriguing notion, with much to recommend it,” said Tuf. “Some might venture to suggest that it was unethical, true, but the true sophisticate retains a certain moral flexibility.”

Rica Dawnstar studied the long, white, expressionless face for a moment, and grinned. “You don’t buy it, do you, Tuf? Down deep, you’re a stickler for rules.”

“Rules are the essence of games, the very heart of them, if you will. They give structure and meaning to our small contests.”

“Sometimes it’s more fun just to kick over the board,” Rica Dawnstar said. “More effective, too.”

Tuf steepled his hands in front of his face. “Though I am not content with my niggardly fee, nonetheless I must fulfill my contract with Kaj Nevis. I would not have him speak poorly of me or the Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices.”

Rica laughed. “Oh, I doubt that he’ll speak poorly of you, Tuf. I doubt that he’ll speak of you at all, once you’ve served your purpose and he’s discarded you.” She was pleased to see that her statement startled Tuf into blinking.

“Indeed,” he said.

“Aren’t you curious about all this? About where we’re going, and why Waan and Lion kept the destination secret until we were aboard? About why Lion hired a bodyguard?”

Haviland Tuf stroked Mushroom’s long gray fur, but his eyes never left Rica Dawnstar’s face. “Curiosity is my great vice. I fear you have seen through to the heart of me, and now you seek to exploit my weakness.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” said Rica Dawnstar.

“An unpleasant suggestion, but unlikely on the face of it,” Tuf commented.

“But satisfaction brought him back,” Rica finished. “Lion knows this is something huge. And hugely dangerous. To get what they want out of this, they needed Nevis, or somebody like Nevis. They have a nice four-way split set up, but Kaj has the kind of reputation that makes you wonder if he’ll settle for a fourth. I’m here to see that he does.” She shrugged, and patted her needler in its shoulder holster. “Besides, I’m insurance against any other complications that might arise.”

“Might I point out that you yourself constitute an additional complication?”

She smiled icily. “Just don’t point it out to Lion,” she said, rising and stretching. “You think about it, Tuf. The way I see it, Nevis has underestimated you. Don’t you go underestimating him. Or me. Never, never, never underestimate me. The time may come when you’ll wish you had an ally. And it may come sooner than you’d like.”


Three days shy of arrival, Celise Waan was complaining again over dinner. Tuf had served a spiced vegetable brouhaha in the manner of Halagreen; a piquant dish, but for the fact that this was the sixth such serving on the voyage. The anthropologist shoved the vegetables around on her plate, made a face, and said, “Why can’t we have some real food?”

Tuf paused, speared a fat mushroom deftly with his fork, lifted it in front of his face. He regarded it in silence for a moment, shifted the angle of his head and regarded it from another angle, turned it around and regarded that aspect of it, and finally prodded it lightly with his finger. “I fail to grasp the nature of your complaint, madam,” he said at last.

“This mushroom, at least, seems real enough to my own poor senses. True, it is but a small sample of the whole. Perhaps the rest of the brouhaha is illusory. Yet I think not.”

“You know what I meant,” Celise Waan said in a shrill tone. “I want meat.”

“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf. “I myself want wealth beyond measure. Such fantasies are easily dreamed, and less easily made real.”

“I’m tired of all these puling vegetables!” Celise Waan screeched. “Are you telling me that there is not a bit of meat to be had on this entire puling ship?”

Tuf made a steeple of his fingers. “It was not my intent to convey such misinformation, certainly,” he said. “I am not an eater of flesh myself, but there is some small poor quantity of meat aboard the Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices, this I freely admit.”

A look of furious satisfaction crossed Celise Waan’s face. She glanced at each of the other diners in turn. Rica Dawnstar was trying to suppress a grin; Kaj Nevis was not even trying; Jefri Lion was looking fretful. “You see,” she told them, “I told you he was keeping the good food for himself.” With all deliberation, she picked up her plate and spun it across the room. It rang off a metal bulkhead and dumped its load of spiced brouhaha on Rica Dawnstar’s unmade bed. Rica smiled sweetly. “We just swapped bunks, Waan,” she said.

“I don’t care,” Celise Waan said. “I’m going to get a decent meal for once. I suppose the rest of you will be wanting to share now.”

Rica smiled “Oh no, dear. It’s all yours.” She finished up her brouhaha, cleaned her plate with a crust of onion bread. Lion looked uncomfortable, and Kaj Nevis said, “If you can get this meat out of Tuf, it’s all yours.”

“Excellent!” she proclaimed. “Tuf, bring me this meat!”

Haviland Tuf regarded her impassively. “True, the contract I made with Kaj Nevis requires me to feed you through the duration of this voyage. Nothing was said about the nature of the provender, however. Always I am put upon. Now I must cater to your culinary whims, it seems. Very well, such is my poor lot in life. And yet, now I find myself taken by a sudden whim of my own. If I must indulge your whim, would it not be equitable that you should similarly bend to mine?”

Waan frowned suspiciously. “What do you mean?”

Tuf spread his hands. “It is nothing, really. In return for the meat you crave, I ask only a moment’s indulgence. I have grown most curious of late, and I would have that curiosity satisfied. Rica Dawnstar has warned me that, unsatisfied, curiosity will surely kill my cats.”

“I’m for that,” said the fat anthropologist.

“Indeed,” said Tuf. “Nonetheless, I must insist. I offer you a trade—food, of the type you have requested so melodramatically, for a poor useless nugget of information, the surrender of which costs you nothing. We are shortly to arrive in the system of Hro B’rana, your chartered destination. I would know why we travel there, and the nature of what you expect to find on this plague star of which I have heard you speak.”

Celise Waan turned to the others again. “We paid good standards for food,” she said. “This is extortion. Jefri, put your foot down!”

“Um,” said Jefri Lion. “There’s really no harm, Celise. He’ll find out anyway, when we arrive. Perhaps it is time he knew.”

“Nevis,” she said, “aren’t you going to do anything?”

“Why?” he demanded. “It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. Tell him and get your meat. Or not. I don’t care.”

Waan glared at Kaj Nevis, and then even more fiercely at the cool pale face of Haviland Tuf, crossed her arms, and said, “All right, if that’s the way it has to be, I’ll sing for my supper.”

“A normal speaking voice will be quite acceptable,” said Tuf.

Celise Waan ignored him. “I’ll make this short and sweet. The discovery of the plague star is my greatest triumph, the capstone of my career, but none of you have the wit or the courtesy to appreciate the work that went into it. I am an anthropologist with the ShanDellor Center for the Advancement of Culture and Knowledge. My academic specialty is the study of primitive cultures of a particular sort—cultures of colony worlds left to isolation and technological devolution in the wake of the Great War. Of course, many human worlds were so affected, and a number of these have been studied extensively. I worked in less well-known fields—the investigation of nonhuman cultures, especially those of former Hrangan slave worlds. One of the worlds I studied was Hro B’rana. Once it was a flourishing colony, a breeding ground for Hruun and dactyloids and lesser Hrangan slave races, but today it’s a devastation. Such sentients that still live there live short, ugly, brutal lives, although like most such decayed cultures, they also have tales of a vanished golden age. But the most interesting thing about Hro B’rana is a legend, a legend unique to them—the plague star.

“Let me stress that the devastation on Hro B’rana is extreme, and the underpopulation severe, despite the fact that the environment is not especially harsh. Why? Well, the degenerate descendants of both Hruun and dactyloid colonists, whose cultures are otherwise utterly different and very hostile to each other, have a common answer to that: the plague star. Every third generation, just as they are climbing out of their misery, as populations are swelling once again, the plague Star waxes larger and larger in their nighttime skies. And when this star becomes the brightest in the heavens, then the season of plagues begins. Pestilences sweep across Hro B’rana, each more terrible than the last. The healers are helpless. Crops wither, animals perish, and three-quarters of the sentient population dies. Those who survive are thrown back into the most brutal sort of existence. Then the plague star wanes, and with its waning the plagues pass from Hro B’rana for another three generations. That is the legend.”



Haviland Tuf’s face had been expressionless as he listened to Celise Waan relate the tale. “Interesting,” he said now. “I must surmise, however, that our present expedition has not been mounted simply to further your career by investigating this arresting folk tale.”

“No,” Celise Waan admitted. “That was once my intent, yes. The legend seemed an excellent topic for a monograph. I was trying to get funding from the Center for a field investigation, but they turned down my request. I was annoyed, and justly so. Those short-sighted fools. I mentioned my annoyance, and the cause, to my colleague, Jefri Lion.”

Lion cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said. “And my field, as you know, is military history. I was intrigued, of course. I buried myself in the Center databanks. Our files are not nearly as complete as those at Avalon and Newholme, but there wasn’t time for a more thorough investigation. We had to act quickly. You see, my theory—well, it’s more than theory, really—I believe, in fact I’m all but certain, that I know what this plague star is. It’s no legend, Tuf! It’s real. It must be a derelict, yes, abandoned but still operational, still carrying out its programs more than a millennium after the Collapse. Don’t you see? Can’t you guess?”

“I admit to failure,” said Tuf, “lacking your familiarity with the subject at hand.”

“It’s a warship, Tuf, a warship in a long elliptical orbit around Hro B’rana. It’s one of the most devastating weapons Old Earth ever put into the void against the Hrangans, in its own way as terrible as that mythical hellfleet they talk about from those last days before the Collapse. But it has vast potential for good as well as ill! It’s the repository of the most advanced biogenetic science of the Federal Empire, a functioning artifact packed full of secrets lost to the rest of humanity.”

“Indeed,” said Tuf.

“It’s a seedship,” Jefri Lion finished, “a biowar seedship of the Ecological Engineering Corps.”

“And it’s ours,” said Kaj Nevis, with a small grim smile.

Haviland Tuf studied Nevis briefly, nodded to himself, and rose. “My curiosity is satisfied,” he announced. “Now I must fulfill my portion of the trade.”

“Ahhh,” said Celise Waan. “My meat.”

“The supply is copious, though the variety is admittedly small,” said Haviland Tuf. “I shall leave you the task of preparing the meat in a manner most pleasant to your palate.” He went to a storage locker, punched in a code, and removed a small carton, which he carried back to the table under his arm. “This is the only meat aboard my vessel. I cannot vouch for its taste or quality. Yet I have not yet received a complaint on either count.”

Rica Dawnstar burst into laughter and Kaj Nevis snickered. Haviland Tuf, neatly and methodically, removed a dozen cans of catfood from their carton, and stacked them in front of Celise Waan. Havoc leapt onto the table and began to purr.


“It’s not as big as I expected,” Celise Waan said, her tone as petulant as ever.

“Madam,” said Haviland Tuf, “the eyes can often deceive. My main viewscreen is admittedly modest, a bare meter in diameter, and this must of course diminish the size of any object displayed thereon. The ship itself is of sizable dimensions.”

Kaj Nevis came forward. “How sizable?”

Tuf folded his hands together atop the bulge of his stomach. “I cannot say with any precision. The Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices is but a modest trading vessel, and its sensory instrumentation is not all that it might be.”

“Approximately, then,” Kaj Nevis snapped.

“Approximately,” Tuf repeated. “Regarded at the angle at which my viewscreen is now displaying it, with the longest axis taken as ‘length,’ the ship we are approaching would seem to be, approximately, some thirty standard kilometers long, approximately some five kilometers in width, approximately some three kilometers in height, but for the domed section amidships, which rises slightly higher, and the forward tower which ascends, approximately, one additional kilometer above the deck from which it rises.”

They had all gathered in the control room, even Anittas, who had been awakened from his computer regulated sleep when they emerged from drive. A hush fell over them; even Celise Waan seemed briefly at a loss for something to say. All of them stared at the viewscreen, at the long black twisted shape that floated against the stars, here and there shining with faint lights and pulsing with unseen energies.

“I was right,” Jefri Lion muttered at last, to break the silence. “A seedship—an EEC seedship! Nothing else could possibly be so large!”

Kaj Nevis smiled. “Damn,” he said.

“The system must be vast,” Anittas said speculatively. “The Earth Imperials had a sophistication far beyond ours. It’s probably an Artificial Intelligence.”

“We’re rich,” burbled Celise Waan, her many and varied grievances forgotten for the moment. She grabbed hold of Jefri Lion’s hands and waltzed him around in a circle, fairly bouncing. “We’re rich, rich, we’re rich and famous, we’re all rich!”

“This is not entirely correct,” said Haviland Tuf. “I do not doubt that you may indeed become wealthy in the near future; for the moment, however, your pockets contain no more standards than they did a moment ago. Nor do Rica Dawnstar and I share your prospects of economic advancement.”

Nevis stared at him hard. “Are you complaining, Tuf?”

“Far be it from me to object,” Tuf said in a flat voice. “I was merely correcting Celise Waan’s misstatement.”

Kaj Nevis nodded. “Good,” he said. “Now, before any of us get any richer, we have to get aboard that thing and see what kind of shape it’s in. Even a derelict ought to net us a nice salvage fee, but if that ship’s in working order, there’s no limit, no limit at all.”

“It is obviously functional,” Jefri Lion said. “It has been raining plagues on Hro B’rana every third generation for a thousand standard years.”

“Yeah,” said Nevis, “well, that’s true, but it’s not the whole story. It’s dead in orbit now. What about the drive engines? The cell library? The computers? We’ve got a lot to check. How do we get aboard, Lion?”

“A docking might be possible,” Jefri Lion replied. “Tuf, that dome, do you see it?” He pointed.

“My vision is unimpaired.”

“Yes, well, I believe that’s the landing deck under there. It’s as big as a spacefield. If we can get the dome to open, you can take your ship right in.”

“If,” said Haviland Tuf. “A most difficult word. So short, and so often fraught with disappointment and frustration.” As if to underline his words, a small red light came on beneath the main viewscreen. Tuf held up a long pale finger. “Take note!” he said.

“What is it?” asked Nevis.

“A communication,” Tuf proclaimed. He leaned forward and touched a much worn button on his lasercom.

The plague star vanished from the screen. In its place appeared a weary-looking face—that of a man of middle years, sitting in a communications room. He had deep lines in his forehead and graven down his cheeks, a full head of thick black hair, and tired blue-gray eyes. He was wearing a uniform out of a history tape, and on his head was a green billed cap emblazoned with a golden theta. “This is Ark,” he announced. “You have entered our defense sphere. Identify yourself or be fired upon. This is your first warning.”

Haviland Tuf held down his SEND button. “This is the Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices,” he annunciated clearly, “Haviland Tuf commanding. We are harmless unarmed traders out of ShanDellor, Ark. Might we request permission to approach for docking?”

Celise Waan gaped. “It’s manned,” she said. “The crew is still alive!”

“A fascinating development,” Jefri Lion said, tugging at his beard. “Perhaps this is a descendant of the original EEC crew. Or perhaps the chronowarp was employed! To warp the very weave of the fabric of time, to hurry it or hold it still, yes, they could do even that. The chronowarp! Think of it!”

Kaj Nevis made a snarling sound. “A thousand damn years and you tell me they’re still alive? How the hell are we supposed to deal with that?”



The image on the viewscreen flickered briefly. Then the same tired man in the uniform of the Earth Imperials said, “This is Ark. Your ID is improperly coded. You are moving through our defense sphere. Identify yourself or be fired upon. This is your second warning.”

“Sir,” said Haviland Tuf, “I must protest! We are unarmed and unprotected. We mean you no harm. We are peaceful traders, scholars, fellow humans. Our intentions are not hostile, and moreover, we lack any means of doing harm to a ship as formidable as your Ark. Must we be met with belligerence?”

The screen flickered. “This is Ark. You have penetrated our defense sphere. Identify yourself immediately or be destroyed. This is your third and final warning.”

“Recordings,” said Kaj Nevis, with some enthusiasm. “That’s it! No cold storage, no damned stasis field. There’s no one there. Some computer is playing recordings at us.”

“I fear you are correct,” said Haviland Tuf. “The question must be asked: if the computer is programmed to play recorded messages at incoming ships, what else might it be programmed to do?”

Jefri Lion broke in. “The codes!” he said. “I have a whole set of Federal Empire codes and ID sequences on crystal chips in my files! I’ll go get them.”

“An excellent plan,” said Haviland Tuf, “with but a single obvious deficiency, that being the time it will require to locate and utilize these encoded chips. Had we the leisure to accomplish this, I might applaud your suggestion. I fear we do not, alas. The Ark has just fired upon us.”

Haviland Tuf reached forward. “I am taking us into drive,” he announced. But as his long pale fingers brushed the keys, suddenly the Cornucopia shook violently. Celise Waan shrieked and went down; Jefri Lion stumbled into Anittas; even Rica Dawnstar had to grab the back of Tuf’s chair to retain her footing. Then all the lights went out. Haviland Tuf’s voice came out of the dark. “I fear I spoke too soon,” he said, “or perhaps, more accurately, acted too tardily.”

For a long moment, they were lost in silence and darkness and dread, waiting for the second hit that would spell an end to them.

And then the blackness ebbed a little; dim lights appeared on all the consoles around them, as the Cornucopia’s instrumentation woke to a flickering half-life. “We are not entirely disabled,” Haviland Tuf proclaimed from the command chair where he sat stiffly. His big hands stretched out over the computer keys. “I will get a damage report. Perhaps we shall be able to retreat after all.”

Celise Waan began to make a noise; a high, thin, hysterical wailing that went on and on. She was still sprawled on the deck. Kaj Nevis turned on her. “Shut up, you damned cow!” he snapped, and he kicked her. Her wail turned into blubbering. “We’re dead meat sitting here like this,” Nevis said loudly. “The next shot will blow us to pieces. Damn it, Tuf, move this thing!”

“Our motion is undiminished,” Tuf replied. “The hit we took did not terminate our velocity, yet it did deflect us somewhat from our previous trajectory toward the Ark. Perhaps that is why we are not being fired upon now.” He was studying wan green figures that uncoiled across one of the smaller telescreens. “I fear my ship has suffered some incapacitation. Shifting into drive now would be inadvisable; the stress would undoubtedly rend us to pieces. Our life support systems have also taken damage. The projections indicate that we will run out of oxygen in approximately nine standard hours.”

Kaj Nevis cursed; Celise Waan began to beat her fists on the deck. “I can conserve oxygen by shutting down once more,” Anittas offered. Everyone ignored him.

“We can kill the cats,” Celise Waan suggested.

“Can we move?” Rica Dawnstar asked.

“The maneuvering engines are still operable,” Tuf said, “but without the ability to shunt into stardrive, it will take us approximately two ShanDish years to reach even Hro B’rana. Four of us can take refuge in pressure suits. The viral airpacs will recycle oxygen indefinitely.”

“I refuse to live in a pressure suit for two years,” Celise Waan said forcefully.

“Excellent,” said Tuf. “As I have only four suits, and we are six in number, this will be of help. Your noble self-sacrifice will be long remembered, madam. Before we put this plan into motion, however, I believe we might consider one other option.”

“And what’s that?” Nevis asked.

Tuf swiveled about in his command chair and looked at each of them in the dimness of the darkened control room. “We must hope that Jefri Lion’s crystalline chip does indeed contain the proper approach code, so that we might affect a docking with the Ark, without being made the target of ancient weaponry.”

“The chip!” Lion said. It was hard to see him. In the darkness, his chameleon cloth jacket had turned a deep black. “I’ll go get it!” He went rushing back toward their living quarters.

Mushroom padded quietly across the room, and leapt up into Tuf’s lap. Tuf settled a hand on him, and the big tom began to purr loudly. It was somehow a reassuring sound. Perhaps they would be all right after all.

But Jefri Lion was gone for too long a time.

When they finally heard him return, his footsteps were leaden, defeated.

“Well?” Nevis said. “Where is it?”

“Gone,” Lion said. “I looked everywhere. It’s gone. I could have sworn I had it with me. My files—Kaj, truly, I meant to bring it along. I couldn’t bring everything, of course, but I duplicated most of the important records, the things I thought might prove useful—material on the war, on the EEC, some histories of this sector. My gray case, you know. It had my little computer, and more than thirty crystal chips. I was going over some of them last night, remember, in bed? I was reviewing the material about the seedships, what little we know, and you told me that I was keeping you awake. I had a chip full of old codes, I know I did, and I really meant to bring it along. But it’s not there.” He came closer. They saw he was carrying the hand computer, holding it out almost as an offering. “I went through the box four times, and searched all the chips I had out on my bed, on the table, everywhere. It’s not here. I’m sorry. Unless one of you took it?” Jefri Lion glanced about the room. No one spoke. “I must have left the codes back on ShanDellor,” he said. “We were in such haste to leave, I …”

“You senile old fool,” said Kaj Nevis. “I ought to kill you right now, and save a little air for the rest of us.”

“We’re dead,” wailed Celise Waan, “we’re dead, dead, dead.”

“Madam,” said Haviland Tuf, petting Mushroom, “you continue to be premature. You are no more deceased now than you were wealthy a short time ago.”

Nevis turned to face him. “Oh? You have an idea, Tuf?”

“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf.

“Well?” prompted Nevis.

“The Ark is our only salvation,” Tuf said. “We must board her. Without Jefri Lion’s code crystal, we cannot move the Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices closer for a docking, for fear of being fired upon once again. This much is obvious. Yet an interesting concept has occurred to me.” He raised a finger. “Perhaps the Ark might display less hostility toward a smaller target—a man in a pressure suit, say, propelled by air jets?”

Kaj Nevis looked thoughtful. “And when this man reaches the Ark, what then? Is he supposed to knock on the hull?”

“Impractical,” admitted Haviland Tuf, “and yet I believe I have a method of dealing with this problem as well,”

They waited. Tuf stroked Mushroom. “Go on,” Kaj Nevis said impatiently.

Tuf blinked. “Go on? Indeed. I fear I must beg your indulgence. My mind is most distracted. My poor ship has suffered grievous harm. My modest livelihood lies ruined and devastated, and who will pay for the necessary repairs? Will Kaj Nevis, soon to enjoy such wealth, shower me with largesse? I fear not. Will Jefri Lion and Anittas buy for me a new ship? Unlikely. Will the esteemed Celise Waan grant me a bonus above and beyond my fee to compensate for my great loss? She has already promised to seek legal redress against me, to have my poor vessel confiscated and my landing license revoked. How then am I to cope? Who will succor me?”

“Never mind about that!” Kaj Nevis said. “How do we get inside the Ark? You said you had a way!”

“Did I?” said Haviland Tuf. “I believe you are correct, sir. Yet I fear the weight of my woes has driven the concept from my poor, distracted mind. I have forgotten it. I can think of nothing but my sorry economic plight.”

Rica Dawnstar laughed, and clapped Tuf soundly across his broad back.

He looked up at her. “And now I am roughly pummeled and beaten as well, by the fierce Rica Dawnstar. Please do not touch me, madam.”

“This is blackmail,” screeched Celise Waan. “We’ll have you put in prison for this!”

“And now my integrity is impugned, and I am showered with threats. Is it any wonder I cannot think, Mushroom?”

Kaj Nevis snarled. “All right, Tuf. You win.” He looked around. “Do I hear any objections to making Tuffy here a full partner? A five-way split?”

Jefri Lion cleared his throat. “He deserves at least that, if his plan works.”

Nevis nodded. “You’re in, Tuf.”

Haviland Tuf rose with immense, ponderous dignity, brushing Mushroom from his lap. “My memory returns to me!” he announced. “There are four pressure suits in the locker, yonder. If one of you would be so kind as to don one and render me your aid, together we shall go to procure a most useful piece of equipment from storage compartment twelve.”


“What the hell,” Rica Dawnstar exclaimed when they came back, carrying their booty between them. She laughed.

“What is it?” demanded Celise Waan.

Haviland Tuf, who loomed large in his silver-blue pressure suit, lowered the legs to the ground and helped Kaj Nevis get it upright. Then he removed his helmet and inspected their prize with satisfaction. “It is a spacesuit, madam,” he said. “I would think that obvious.”

It was a spacesuit, of sorts, but it was like no suit any of them had ever seen before, and clearly, whoever had constructed it had not had humans in mind. It towered over all of them, even Tuf; the ornate crest on the great beetling helmet was a good three meters off the deck, and almost brushed the top of the bulkhead. There were four thick double-jointed arms, the bottom two ending in gleaming, serrated pincers; the legs were broad enough to contain the trunks of small trees, and the footpads were great circular saucers. On the broad, hunched back were mounted four huge tanks; a radar antenna sprang from the right shoulder; and everywhere the rigid black metal of which it was constructed was filigreed in strange swirling patterns of red and gold. It stood among them like an armored giant of old.

Kaj Nevis jerked a thumb at the armor. “It’s here,” he said. “So what? How will this monstrosity help us?” He shook his head. “It looks like a piece of junk to me.”

“Please,” said Tuf. “This mechanism, which you so disparage, is an antique rich with history. I acquired this fascinating alien artifact, at no small cost to myself, on Unqi when I passed through that sector. This is a genuine Unquin battlesuit, sir, represented to be of the Hameriin dynasty, which fell some fifteen hundred years ago, long before humanity reached the Unquish stars. It has been fully restored.”

“What does it do, Tuf?” asked Rica Dawnstar, always quick to come to the point.

Tuf blinked. “Its capabilities are many and varied. Two strike closest to home in regard to our present quandary. It has an augmented exoskeleton, and when fully charged will magnify the inherent strength of its occupant by a power of ten, approximately. Furthermore, its equipment includes a most excellent cutting laser, engineered to slice through duralloy of a thickness of one-half meter, or of plate steel of significantly greater thickness, when directly applied at zero range. In brief, this ancient battlesuit will be our means of entry into the ancient warship that looms as our only salvation.”

“Splendid,” said Jefri Lion, clapping his hands together in approval.

“It might work at that,” Kaj Nevis commented. “What’s the drill?”

“I must admit to some deficiency of equipment for deep space maneuvering,” Tuf replied. “Our resources include four standard pressure suits, but only two jetpacs. The Unquin battlesuit, I am pleased to report, has its own propulsion vents. I propose the following plan. I will don the battlesuit and make egress from the Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices, accompanied by Rica Dawnstar and Anittas in pressure suits and jetpacs. We will proceed to the Ark with all due speed. If we make the journey safely, we will use the battlesuit’s most excellent capabilities to gain entrance through an airlock. I am told that Anittas is expert in ancient cybernetic systems and obsolete computers. Very well, then. Once inside, he will no doubt have little trouble gaining control of the Ark and will supersede the hostile programming now in place. At that point, Kaj Nevis will be able to pilot my crippled ship in for a docking, and all of us will have attained safety.”

Celise Waan turned a vivid shade of red. “You’re leaving us to die,” she screeched. “Nevis, Lion, we must stop them! Once they’re on the Ark, they’ll blow us up! We can’t trust them.”

Haviland Tuf blinked. “Why must my morality be constantly assaulted by these accusations?” he asked. “I am a man of honor. The course of action you have suggested had never crossed my mind.”

“It’s a good plan,” said Kaj Nevis. He smiled, and began to unseal his pressure suit. “Anittas, hireling, suit up.”

“Are you going to let them abandon us here?” Celise Waan demanded of Jefri Lion.

“I’m sure they mean us no harm,” Lion said, tugging on his beard, “and if they did, Celise, how do you propose I stop them?”

“Let us move the battlesuit down to the main air lock,” Haviland Tuf said to Kaj Nevis while Dawnstar and the cybertech were suiting up. Nevis nodded, kicked his way free of his own pressure suit, and moved to help Tuf.

With some difficulty, they wrestled the huge Unquish suit down to the Cornucopia’s main lock. Tuf shed his pressure suit and unbolted the armored entry port, then pulled over a stepstool and began to climb laboriously inside. “Just a moment, Tuffy,” Kaj Nevis said, grabbing him by the shoulder.

“Sir,” said Haviland Tuf, “I do not like to be touched. Unhand me.” He turned back and blinked in surprise. Kaj Nevis had produced a vibroknife. The slender, humming blade, which could slice through solid steel, was a blur of motion less than a centimeter from Tuf’s nose.

“A good plan,” Kaj Nevis said, “but let’s make one little change. I’ll wear the supersuit, and go with Anittas and little Rica. You stay here and die.”

“I do not approve of this substitution,” said Haviland Tuf. “I am chagrined that you too would truckle to unfounded suspicion of my motives. I assure you, as I have assured Celise Waan, that thought of treachery has never crossed my mind.”

“Funny,” said Kaj Nevis. “It crossed my mind. Seemed like a damn fine idea, too.”

Haviland Tuf assumed a look of wounded dignity. “Your base plans are undone, sir,” he announced. “Anittas and Rica Dawnstar have come up behind you. It is well known that Rica Dawnstar was hired to forestall just such behavior from you. I advise you to surrender now. It will go easier on you.”

Kaj Nevis grinned.

Rica had her helmet cradled under her arm. She observed the tableau, shook her pretty head slightly, and sighed. “You should have taken my offer, Tuf. I told you the time would come when you’d be sorry you didn’t have an ally.” She donned the helmet, sealed it, scooped up an airjet. “Let’s go, Nevis.”

Comprehension finally dawned on the broad face of Celise Waan. To her credit, this time she did not succumb to hysteria. She looked about for a weapon, found nothing obvious, and finally grabbed Mushroom, who was standing nearby and watching events with curiosity. “You, you, YOU!” she shouted, heaving the cat across the room. Kaj Nevis ducked. Mushroom yowled mightily and bounced off Anittas.

“Kindly cease flinging about my cats,” Haviland Tuf said.

Nevis, recovering quickly, brandished the vibroknife at Tuf in a most unpleasant fashion, and Tuf backed slowly away. Nevis paused long enough to scoop up Tuf’s discarded pressure suit and slice it deftly into a dozen long silver-blue ribbons. Then, carefully, he climbed into the Unquin battlesuit. Rica Dawnstar sealed it up after him. It took Nevis some time to figure out the alien control systems, but after about five minutes, the bulging faceplate began to glow a baleful blood red, and the heavy upper limbs moved ponderously. He switched to the lower, pincered arms experimentally while Anittas opened the inner door of the lock. Kaj Nevis lumbered in, clacking his pincers, followed by the cybertech and, lastly, Rica Dawnstar. “Sorry, folks,” she announced as the door was sliding shut. “It’s nothing personal. Just arithmetic.”

“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf. “Subtraction.”


Haviland Tuf sat in his command chair, enthroned in darkness, watching the flickering instrumentation before him. Mushroom, his dignity much offended, had settled in Tuf’s lap, and was graciously allowing himself to be soothed. “The Ark is not firing on our erstwhile compatriots,” he told Jefri Lion and Celise Waan.

“This is all my fault,” Jefri Lion was saying.

“No,” said Celise Waan. “It’s his fault.” She jerked a fat thumb toward Tuf.

“You are not the most appreciative of women,” Haviland Tuf observed.

“Appreciative? What am I supposed to appreciate?” she said angrily.

Tuf made a steeple of his hands. “We are not without resources. To begin with, Kaj Nevis left us one functioning pressure suit,” he pointed out.

“And no propulsion systems.”

“Our air will last twice as long with our numbers diminished,” Tuf said.

“But will still run out,” snapped Celise Waan.

“Kaj Nevis and his cohorts did not use the Unquin battlesuit to destroy the Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices after their exit, as well they might have.”

“Nevis preferred to see us die a lingering death,” the anthropologist replied.

“I think not. More likely, in point of fact, he wished to preserve this vessel as a last refuge should his plan to board the Ark somehow miscarry,” Tuf mused. “In the nonce, we have shelter, provisions, and the possibility of maneuver, however limited.”

“What we have is a crippled ship that is rapidly running out of air,” said Celise Waan. She started to say something else, but just then Havoc came bounding into the control room, all energy and bounce, in hot pursuit of a bit of jewelry she’d sent rolling in before her. It landed by Celise Waan’s feet; Havoc pounced on it, and sent it spinning with a tentative swipe. Celise Waan yelped. “My glowstone ring! I’ve been looking for that! Damn you, you filthy thief.” She bent and snatched for the ring. Havoc closed with her, and she gave the cat a lusty blow with her fist. She missed. Havoc’s claws were more accurate. Celise Waan shrieked.

Haviland Tuf was on his feet. He snatched up the cat and the ring, tucked Havoc safely under his arm, and handed the ring stiffly to its bleeding owner. “Your property,” he said.

“Before I die, I swear I’m going to grab that creature by the tail and smash its brains on a bulkhead—if it has any brains.”

“You do not sufficiently appreciate the virtues of the feline,” said Tuf, retreating to his chair. He soothed Havoc’s feelings as he had earlier soothed Mushroom. “Cats are most intelligent animals. In fact, it is well known that all cats have a touch of psi. The primitives of Old Earth were known to worship them.”



“I’ve studied primitives who worship fecal matter,” the anthropologist said testily. “That animal is a filthy beast!”

“The feline is fastidiously clean,” Tuf said calmly. “Havoc herself is scarcely more than a kitten, and her playfulness and chaotic temperament remain undiminished,” he said. “She is a most willful creature, and yet, that is but part of her charm. Curiously, she is also a creature of habit. Who could fail to be warmed by the joy she takes in play with small objects left lying about? Who could fail to be amused by the foolish frequency with which she loses her playthings beneath the consoles in this very room? Who indeed. Only the most sour and stony-hearted.” Tuf blinked rapidly—once, twice, three times. On his long, still face, it was a thunderstorm of emotion. “Off, Havoc,” he said, gently swatting the cat from his lap. He rose, then sank to his knees with a stiff dignity. On hands and knees, Haviland Tuf began to crawl about the room and feel beneath the control consoles.

“What are you doing?” demanded Celise Waan.

“I am searching for Havoc’s lost toys,” said Haviland Tuf.

“I’m bleeding and we’re running out of air and you’re looking for cat toys!” she said in exasperation.

“I believe I have just stated as much,” Tuf said. He pulled a handful of small objects out from under the console, and then a second handful. After thrusting his arm all the way back and patting about systematically, he finally gave up, gathered his cache, dusted himself off, and began to sort the prizes from the dust, “Interesting,” he said.

“What?” she demanded.

“These are yours,” he said to Celise Waan. He handed her another ring and two light pencils. “These are mine,” he said, shoving aside two more light pencils, three red cruisers, a yellow dreadnaught, and a silver star-fort. “And this, I believe, is yours.” He held it out to Jefri Lion: a shaped crystal the size of a thumbnail.

Lion all but bounded to his feet. “The chip!”

“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf.


There was a moment of endless suspense after Tuf had lasered the docking request. A thin crack appeared in the middle of the great black dome, and then another, at cross angles to the first. Then a third, a fourth, more and still more. The dome split into a hundred narrow pie-shaped wedges, which receded into the hull of the Ark.

Jefri Lion let go of his breath. “It works,” he said, in a voice full of awe and gratitude.

“I reached that conclusion some time ago,” Tuf said, “when we successfully penetrated the defense sphere without being fired upon. This is merely a confirmation.”

They watched the proceedings on the viewscreen. Beneath the dome appeared a landing deck fully as large as the ports of many a lesser planet. The deck was pockmarked with circular landing pads, several of which were occupied. As they waited, a ring of blue-white light flicked on around one vacant pad.

“Far be it from me to dictate your behavior,” said Haviland Tuf, his eyes on his instruments, his hands in careful, methodical motion. “I would, however, advise that each of you strap in securely. I am extending the landing legs and programming us for a landing on the indicated pad, but I am uncertain how much damage the legs have sustained, uncertain even as to whether all three legs remain in place. Therefore I counsel caution.”

The landing deck yawned blackly beneath them. They began a stately descent into its cavernous depths. The illuminated ring of the landing pad loomed larger and larger on one viewscreen; a second showed the wan blue light of the Cornucopia’s gravity engines flickering off distant metal walls and the silhouettes of other ships. In a third, they saw the dome reassembling itself, a dozen sharp teeth grinding together once more, as if they had just been swallowed by some vast spacefaring animal.

The impact was surprisingly gentle. They settled into place with a sigh and a whisper and only the smallest of bumps. Haviland Tuf killed their engines, and spent a moment studying the instruments and the scenes on his telescreens. Then he turned to face the others. “We are docked,” he announced, “and the time has come to make our plans.”

Celise Waan was busily unstrapping herself. “I want to get out of here,” she said, “find Nevis and that bitch Rica, and give them both a good piece of my mind.”

“A good piece of your mind might be considered an oxymoron,” said Haviland Tuf. “I think your proposed course of action unwise in the extreme. Our former colleagues must now be considered our rivals. Having just abandoned us to death, they shall undoubtedly be nonplussed to discover us still alive, and might very well take steps to rectify this contradiction.”

“Tuf is right,” Jefri Lion said. He was moving from one screen to another, peering at them with fascination. The ancient seedship had rekindled his spirit and his imagination, and he was bristling with energy. “It’s us against them, Celise. This is war. They’ll kill us if they can, have no doubt of it. We must be similarly ruthless! This is a time for clever tactics.”

“I bow to your martial expertise,” Tuf said. “What strategies do you suggest?”

Jefri Lion tugged on his beard. “Well,” he said, “well, let me think. What’s the situation here? They have Anittas. The man’s half-computer himself. Once he interfaces with the shipboard systems, he should be able to determine how much of the Ark is functional, yes, and perhaps to exercise some control over its functioning, too. That could be dangerous. He might be trying it right now. We know they got aboard first. They may or may not know we’re aboard. We have the advantage of surprise, perhaps!”

“They have the advantage of having all the weaponry,” said Haviland Tuf.

“No problem!” said Jefri Lion. He rubbed his hands together eagerly. “This is a warship, after all. The EEC specialized in biowar, true, but this was a military vessel and I’m sure the crew had personal sidearms, that sort of thing. There’s got to be an armory. All we have to do is find it.”

“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf.

Lion was rolling now. “Our advantage, well, not to be immodest about it, but our advantage is me. Aside from what Anittas can discover from the computers, they’ll be blundering about in the dark. But I’ve studied the old Federal Empire ships. I know everything about them.” He frowned. “Well, everything that wasn’t lost or classified, anyway. At least I know a few things about the general plans of these seedships. We’ll have to find the armory first, and it should be close. It was standard procedure to store weaponry near the landing deck, for ground parties and such. After we’re armed, we ought to look for—hmmmm, let me think—well, yes, the cell library, that’s crucial. The seedships had vast cell libraries, cloning material from literally thousands of worlds preserved in a stasis field. We must discover if the cells are still viable! If the stasis field has failed and the samples have decayed, all we have gained is a very large ship. But if the systems are still operational, the Ark is literally priceless!”

“While I appreciate the importance of the cell library,” Tuf said, “it strikes me that a more immediate priority might be the location of the bridge. Making the perhaps unwarranted but nonetheless attractive assumption that none of the original crew of the Ark is alive after the passage of a millennium, we are then alone on this vessel with our enemies, and whichever party gains control of shipboard functions first will enjoy a rather formidable advantage.”

“A good point, Tuf!” Lion exclaimed. “Well then, let’s get to it.”

“Right,” said Celise Waan. “I want out of this cat trap.”

Haviland Tuf raised a finger. “A moment, please. A problem presents itself. We are three in number, and possess only a single pressure suit among us.”

“We’re inside a ship,” Celise Waan said in a voice that dripped sarcasm. “What do we need with suits?”

“Perhaps nothing,” Tuf admitted. “It is true, as you imply, that the landing field seems to function as a very large airlock; my instruments indicate that we are now surrounded by an entirely breathable oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, pumped in when the closure of the dome was complete.”

“So what’s the problem, Tuf?”

“No doubt I am being overcautious,” Haviland Tuf said. “I admit to some disquiet, however. This Ark, though perhaps abandoned and derelict, is nonetheless dutiful. Witness the plagues it still regularly visits on Hro B’rana. Witness the efficiency with which it defended itself against our approach. We cannot know, as yet, why this ship was abandoned, nor how the last of the crew met their end, but it seems clear that it was their intent that the Ark live on. Perhaps the external defense sphere was only the first of several lines of automatic defense.”

“An intriguing notion,” said Jefri Lion. “Traps?”

“Of a particular kind. The atmosphere that awaits us may seethe with pestilence, plague, and biogenetic contagion. Dare we risk it? I would be more comfortable in a pressure suit, myself, though each of you is free to decide otherwise.”

Celise Waan looked uncomfortable. “I should get the suit,” she said. “We only have one, and you owe it to me, after the beastly way I’ve been treated.”

“We need not enter into that discussion again, madam,” said Tuf. “We are on a landing deck. Around us, I observe nine other spacecraft of varying design. One is a Hruun fighter, one a Rhiannese merchant; two are of designs unfamiliar to me. And five are plainly shuttlecraft of some sort, identical to each other, larger than my own poor vessel here, undoubtedly part of the Ark’s own original equipment. It is my experience that spacecraft invariably are equipped with pressure suits. It is my intention, therefore, to don our single remaining suit, exit, and search these neighboring ships until I have found suits for each of you.”

“I don’t like it,” Celise Waan snapped. “You get out, and we’re still stuck here.”

“Such are the vicissitudes of life,” Tuf said, “that each of us must sometimes accept that which he does not like.”


The airlock gave them a bit of trouble. It was a small emergency lock, with manual controls. They had no difficulty opening the outer door, entering, and sealing it behind them. The inner door was another and more difficult proposition.

Atmosphere came flooding back into the large chamber as soon as the outer door was closed, but the inner door was jammed somehow. Rica Dawnstar tried it first; the huge metal wheel refused to turn, the lever would not depress. “OUT OF MY WAY,” Kaj Nevis said, his voice twisted into a rasping croak by the alien comm circuits built into the Unquin battlesuit, and boosted to deafening levels by external speakers. He trundled past her, the huge saucer feet ringing loudly on the deck, and the battlesuit’s great upper arms seized the wheel and turned. The wheel resisted for a moment, then twisted and buckled, and finally came loose of the door entirely.

“Good work,” Rica said over her suit speaker. She laughed.

Kaj Nevis growled something thunderously unintelligible. He seized the lever and tried to move it, and succeeded only in breaking it off.

Anittas moved closer to the stubborn inner lock mechanism. “A set of code buttons,” he said, pointing. “The proper code sequence, if we knew it, would no doubt gain us entry automatically. There’s a computer outlet, too. If I could interface, perhaps I could pull the correct code out of the system.”

“WHAT’S STOPPING YOU?” Kaj Nevis demanded. His faceplate glowed balefully.

Anittas lifted his arms, turned his hands over helplessly.

With the more obviously organic portions of his body covered by the silver-blue of his pressure suit, and his silver metallic eyes peering out through the plastic, he looked more like a robot than ever. Kaj Nevis, standing huge above him, looked like a much larger robot. “This suit,” Anittas said, “is improperly designed. I cannot interface directly without removing it.”

“REMOVE IT, THEN,” Nevis said.

“Will that be safe?” asked Anittas. “I am unsure.”

“There’s air in here,” Rica Dawnstar put in. She gestured toward the appropriate bank of indicators.

“Neither of you has removed your suit,” Anittas pointed out. “Were I to make a mistake, and open the outer door instead of the inner one, I might die before I could seal up again.”

“DON’T MAKE A MISTAKE,” Kaj Nevis boomed.

Anittas crossed his arms. “The air might be unhealthy. This ship has been derelict for a thousand standard years, Kaj Nevis. Even the most sophisticated system goes down from time to time, experiences failures and glitches. I am unwilling to risk my person.”

“OH?” Nevis thundered. There was a grinding sound. One of the lower arms came up slowly; the serrated metal pincer opened, seized Anittas about the middle, and pinned him against the nearest wall. The cybertech squawked protest. An upper arm came across, and a huge metal-gloved hand dug in under the collar of the pressure suit. It pulled. The helmet and the entire top of the suit came ripping off Anittas. His head almost came off, as well.

“I LIKE THIS SUIT,” Kaj Nevis announced. He gave the cybertech a little squeeze with the pincer. Metal fabric tore and blood began oozing through. “YOU’RE BREATHING, AREN’T YOU?”

Anittas was almost hyperventilating, in fact. He nodded. The battlesuit flung him to the floor. “THEN GET TO WORK,” Nevis told him.

That was when Rica Dawnstar began to feel nervous. She backed away casually, leaned against the outer door as far from Nevis as she could get, and considered the situation while Anittas removed his gloves and the shards of his ruined suit and slid the bluesteel fingers of his right hand into the waiting computer plugs. She had strapped her shoulder holster on over her pressure suit, so her needler would be accessible, but suddenly its presence didn’t seem entirely as reassuring as it usually did. She studied the thickness of the Unquin armor, and wondered if maybe she had been unwise in her choice of ally. A three-way split was much better than Jefri Lion’s small fee, to be sure. But what if Nevis decided he didn’t like a three-way split?

They heard a sharp, sudden pop and the inner door began to slide open. Beyond was a narrow corridor leading down into blackness. Kaj Nevis moved to the doorway and peered into the dark, his glowing red faceplate throwing scarlet reflections on the walls. Then he turned ponderously. “YOU, HIRELING!” he boomed at Rica Dawnstar, “GO SCOUT IT OUT.”

She came to a decision. “Aye, aye, bossman,” she said. She drew her needler, moved quickly to the door and down the corridor, followed it about ten meters to a cross-corridor. From there she looked back. Nevis, hugely armored, filled the airlock door. Anittas stood beside him. The cybertech, normally so silent, still, and efficient, was shaking. “Stay right there,” Rica called back to them. “It’s not safe!” Then she turned and picked a direction at random and began to run like hell.


It took Haviland Tuf much longer than he had anticipated to locate the suits. The nearest of the other spacecraft was the Hruun fighter, a chunky green machine bristling with weaponry. It was sealed up securely, however, and although Tuf circled it several times and studied the various instruments that seemed designed to command access, none of his tugging, prodding, pushing, or fiddling produced the desired result, and he was forced to give it up finally and proceed onward.

The second ship, one of the strange ones, was wide open, and he wandered through it with a certain amount of intellectual fascination. Its interior was a maze of narrow corridors whose walls were as irregular and pebbly as a cave, and soft to the touch. Its instruments were incomprehensible. Its pressure suits, when he located what looked to be pressure suits, might have been functional, but could never have been worn by anyone over a meter tall or bilaterally symmetrical.

The Rhiannese merchant, his third try, had been gutted; Tuf could locate nothing useful.

Finally, there was nothing to be done for it but to hike all the way to one of the five distant shuttlecraft that stood side by side, snug in custom launching berths. They were big ships, larger than the Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices, with black pitted hulls and rakish wings, but they were clearly of human design and seemingly in good repair. Tuf finally puzzled his way into one of them, whose berth bore a metal plate with an engraved silhouette of some fanciful animal and a legend proclaiming it to be named Griffin. Pressure suits were located where they should have been located. They were in excellent shape, considering that they were a thousand years old, and quite striking as well: a deep green in color, with golden helmet, gloves, and boots, and a golden theta emblazoned upon the breast of each. Tuf selected two of them and carried them back across the echoing twilit plain of the landing deck, to where the scarred, crippled teardrop that was his Cornucopia squatted on its three splayed legs.

When he got to the base of the ramp that led up to the main lock, he almost stumbled over Mushroom.

The big tom was sitting on the deck. He got up and made a plaintive noise, rubbing himself against Tuf’s booted foot.



Haviland Tuf stopped for an instant and stared down at the old gray tom. He bent awkwardly, gathered up the cat, and stroked him for a time. When he climbed the ramp to the airlock, Mushroom followed, and Tuf found it necessary to shoo him away. He cycled through with a pressure suit under each arm.

“It’s about time,” Celise Waan said when Tuf entered.

“I told you Tuf hadn’t abandoned us,” Jefri Lion said.

Haviland Tuf let the pressure suits fall to the deck, where they lay like a puddle of green and gold. “Mushroom is outside,” Tuf said in a flat, passionless voice.

“Well, yes,” Celise Waan said. She grabbed a suit and began squeezing into the green metallic fabric. It bound her tightly about the middle; the members of the Ecological Engineering Corps had seemingly been less fleshy than she. “Couldn’t you have gotten me a larger size?” she complained. “Are you sure these suits still work?”

“The construction seems sound,” Tuf said. “It will be necessary to infuse the airpacs with whatever living bacteria remain from the ship’s cultures. How did Mushroom come to be outside?”

Jefri Lion cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Uh, yes,” he said. “Celise was afraid you weren’t coming back, Tuf. You were gone so long. She thought you’d left us here.”

“A base and foundless suspicion,” said Tuf.

“Uh, yes,” said Lion. He looked away, reached for his own suit.

Celise Waan pulled on a golden boot, sealed it. “It’s your fault,” she said to Tuf. “If you hadn’t been gone so long, I wouldn’t have gotten restless.”

“Indeed,” said Tuf. “What, might I venture to ask, has your restlessness to do with Mushroom?”

“Well, I thought you weren’t coming back, and we had to get out of here,” the anthropologist said. She sealed up her second boot. “But you made me nervous, you know, with all your talk of plagues. So I cycled the cat through the airlock. I tried to get that damned black-and-white one, but it kept running away and hissing at me. The gray one just let me pick it up. I dumped it out and we’ve been watching it through the screens. I figured we could see whether or not it got sick. If it didn’t show any symptoms, well, then probably it would be safe for us to risk coming out.”

“I grasp the principle,” said Haviland Tuf.

Havoc came bounding in the room, playing with something. She saw Tuf and headed toward him, walking with a pronounced kittenish swagger.

“Jefri Lion,” said Tuf, “if you would, please apprehend Havoc, take her back to the living quarters, and confine her there.”

“Uh, certainly,” Lion said. He caught up Havoc as she went by him. “Why?”

“I would prefer henceforth to keep Havoc secure and separated from Celise Waan,” Tuf said.

Celise Waan, helmet cradled under her arm, made a noise of derision. “Oh, stuff and nonsense. The gray one is fine.”

“Permit me to mention a concept with which you are perhaps unfamiliar,” said Haviland Tuf. “It is referred to as an incubation period.”


“I’M GOING TO KILL THAT BITCH,” Kaj Nevis threatened as he and Anittas made their way down a dark hallway. “DAMN HER. YOU CAN’T GET A DECENT MERCENARY ANYMORE.” The battlesuit’s huge head turned to search for the cybertech, the faceplate glowing. “HURRY UP.”

“I cannot match your strides,” Anittas said as he hurried up. His sides ached from the effort of keeping up with Nevis’s pace; his cyberhalf was strong as metal and quick as electronic circuitry, but his biohalf was poor tired wounded flesh, and blood still oozed from the cuts Nevis had opened around his midsection. He was feeling dizzy and hot, as well. “It’s not far now,” he said. “Down this corridor and to the left, third door. It is a substantial substation. I felt it when I was plugged in. I will be able to meld with the main system.” And rest, he thought. He was incredibly weary, and his biohalf ached and throbbed.

“I WANT THE DAMN LIGHTS ON,” Nevis commanded. “AND THEN I WANT YOU TO FIND HER FOR ME. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?”

Anittas nodded, and pushed himself harder. Two small hot pinpoints of red burned on his cheeks, unseen by his silver-metal eyes, and for an instant his vision blurred and wavered, and he heard a loud buzzing in his ears. He stopped.

“WHAT’S WRONG NOW?” Nevis demanded.

“I am experiencing some loss of function,” Anittas said. “I must reach the computer room and run a check on my systems.” He started forward again, and staggered. Then his balance deserted him totally, and he fell.