Hex Page 3

  Thus, a vessel couldn’t make the hyperspace jaunt unless it had an appropriate starbridge key for its destination, and the race who controlled the starbridge at that place could choose who received those keys and, therefore, who got to visit their worlds. Since the distances between inhabited systems were usually so great that it could take an invasion fleet, traveling at sublight velocity, a hundred years or more to reach its objective, this made surprise attacks all but impossible.

  As a result, war was so difficult to wage that it simply wasn’t worth the time or effort. Far easier to reach an accord with one’s adversaries, or at least ignore them. So armed conflict between potential enemies was rare. Most races sincerely wanted to get along with one another, and even when first-contact situations occasionally went badly—such as when humans met hjadd—peace was nearly always seen as the first, and most preferred, option.

  “True.” Harker nodded, understanding what she meant. “Even so, there’s something about the danui that none of the other races care to share with us, even though they all seem to know about it. Something or someplace that the hjadd call tanaash-haq, which astroethnicists at the university tells us translates as ‘the living world.’ ”

  “ ‘The living world’?” Andromeda raised an eyebrow. “What the hell does that mean?”

  Harker shrugged. “No idea... and the hjadd aren’t telling us. Navy Intelligence has been trying to find out exactly what it is for quite some time, but only lately have they asked the merchant marine for help.”

  Andromeda nodded. There was a long-standing rivalry between the Navy and the merchant marine that went back to the time that private operators started competing with government ships for right-of-way through Starbridge Coyote. Ever since Coyote had begun trading with the Talus, the merchant marine had become the Federation’s most-widely-traveled ships. Although the Navy handled most of the diplomatic travel between 47 Ursae Majoris and the rest of the galaxy, if there was any group likely to ferret out info about the danui, it would be a merchantman’s captain and crew. “I’m surprised you haven’t come to me before,” she said.

  “We would’ve, but you’ve been handling the soranta route the last couple of years. We figured that you probably wouldn’t have learned anything more from them than we already have... which has been zero... so we didn’t get in touch with you.” Harker shrugged. “Nothing personal, Andi”—Andromeda winced; she hated that nickname—“but the intelligence boys have been trying to let as few people know about this as possible, and...”

  “I didn’t need to know. Right.” Andromeda tried not to bristle, but this sounded like much the same sort of paranoia she’d had to put up with in the Union Astronautica. So much for Coyote progressivism, she thought sourly.

  “Anyway, we put out the word that we wanted to open a dialogue with the danui, with the purpose of establishing trade relations with them, and eventually one of our other captains came through... Frank Lewin, of the Bear’s Choice.”

  “I know Frank.” Like most merchantmen captains, Frank also had a cottage in the Riverside neighborhood. They sometimes played cards together, along with other ship commanders or senior officers spending a little ground time between flights. “He usually alternates the Rho Coronae Borealis run with you, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes, he does.” An ironic smile. “I might have learned this myself, except that Frank’s ship gets out to Talus qua’spah more often than the Pride does these days, and that’s exactly what happened.” His smile faded. “But it wasn’t from the hjadd or the arsashi or the soranta or any of the other usual suspects that we learned what we wanted to know, but from the race I would never have guessed... the nord.”

  “The nord?” Andromeda gave him a skeptical look. “I never would have guessed either. Are you sure?”

  Of the many races humans had met since joining the Talus, the nord were easily the most obnoxious. Resembling—and sounding much like—wild turkeys who happened to be six feet tall and had arms and hands where wings should be, the nord had lost their homeworld several years ago, when the rogue black hole known as Kasimasta, or the Annihilator, passed through their solar system. They’d managed to evacuate most of their population before Nordash was destroyed, and since then, they’d become something of a gypsy race, their ships traveling from one system to another, taking advantage of other races’ hospitality until they inevitably wore out their welcome through what seemed to be innate traits of arrogance and argumentativeness.

  “We’re sure... It was the nord, all right.” Harker grinned. “They’re a pain in the bum, but there’s one thing you can say for them... They love our banjos.”

  “I’ve heard that. Our banjos sound a lot like some musical instrument of their own. Most of them were left behind, though, when they had to evacuate their world, and the trees from which they were fashioned were on Nordash. So they buy banjos from us as an acceptable substitute.”

  “That’s right,” Harker said. “Only don’t ever ask a nord to play a banjo for you. Not unless you want a migraine that’ll last all week.” He became serious again. “Anyway, Frank traded them a container full of brand-new banjos, and during the exchange he learned something very interesting. The nord are no longer wanderers. The danui have recently given them permission to establish a colony on a world within their own system, and since then, the nord have been sending their people there.”

  “Well, that’s generous, I suppose.” Andromeda sipped her coffee. “But what does that have to do with us?”

  “The nord captain told Frank that there may also . . . very probably, in fact... be another world in the danui system that would be habitable by humans. And that if we approached the danui emissary and asked nicely, it might give us the hyperspace key for their starbridge.”

  For a few moments, Andromeda was speechless. Feeling the coffee mug about to slip from her hands, she leaned forward to carefully place it on the table. “You’re joking,” she said at last, then shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. What I meant to say was, they’re joking, and you fell for it.”

  Harker neither smiled nor frowned. “No, I’m not kidding... and neither is Frank, or the nord, or even the danui. As soon as Frank let our people know what had been said to him, our Talus emissary went to see their Talus emissary, and the danui confirmed what the nord told Frank. Yes, there’s a world in their home system that’s human-habitable, and we’re welcome to it.”

  Andromeda opened her mouth to respond, only to discover that she didn’t know quite what to say. In the four hundred years that humankind had been exploring space, only one unoccupied world capable of supporting human life had been discovered, and that was Coyote. Every other planet humans had found or visited either required survival gear to cope with differences in atmosphere and temperature, or—as in the case of Sanja, the soranta homeworld—was already inhabited by oxygen-nitrogen breathers. Fortunately, Coyote’s population was still small enough that no one expected to be bumping elbows with their neighbors anytime soon. All the same, though, the Navy had made the discovery of another world suitable for colonization a high priority.

  “And that’s it?” she asked. “The danui have a habitable planet in their home system, and they’re willing to let us have it?” Harker nodded. “Just like that? No questions asked?”

  “Only a couple of stipulations. We agree not to engage in hostile actions against them or any other races we may find there, and also that we accept their terms for future trade negotiations with them. But from what George Jones has told us, there’s no one there whom we’d consider to be an enemy, and all they want from us is the same thing that they want from everyone else... raw materials like iron, copper, zinc, silicon, and so forth.”

  “I see.” Andromeda slowly nodded. “And I take it that we’ve been given the planet’s coordinates along with the starbridge key.”

  “The key, we have. George Jones said that the coordinates will be given to us once one of our ships makes the jump.” Harker f
rowned slightly. “And that’s something of a puzzle right there. Because, according to our data, there’s not a lot in the danui home system, let alone planets habitable by us or anyone else.”

  He looked at his datapad again. “Display HD 76700 system diagram,” he said loudly, and George Jones vanished, to be replaced by a three-dimensional schematic of a solar system. It was remarkably simple: a midsized star, with a single planet in a close yet highly elliptical orbit around it.

  “HD 76700,” Harker continued, reading from his pad’s screen. “Type G6V star, same spectral class as 47 Uma but just a little larger, located 214.9 light-years from Coyote.” He pointed to the sole planet circling the star. “In the early twenty-first century, optical inferometry found a small gas giant in close orbit around it. Since its semimajor axis is a little less than .05 AUs, that means HD 76700-B completes an orbit of its primary about once every four days.”

  Andromeda nodded. Hot Jupiters, while freakish, were not uncommon in the galaxy. They were usually gas giants that evolved in the outer reaches of a solar system, only to have their orbits gradually deteriorate over time. When that happened, the planets began long, slow falls toward their primaries, death spirals that took millennia to complete.

  “Are you sure you’ve got the right system?” she asked. “I mean... look, I’m not an astronomer, but even I know that habitable worlds of any kind aren’t usually found in the same system as a hot jupe. The whole system gets destabilized.”

  “Our people thought of that, too,” Harker said, “but the danui insist that this is their home system and that more than one habitable world exists there. But it’s still strange as hell... Overlay HD 76700 remote image.”

  On top of the schematic diagram, a two-dimensional photographic image was transposed: the danui star, a small white blob brighter than the tiny dots of light in the background yet surrounded by a nimbus the color of verdigris on rusting copper pipes.

  “That’s what we see when we point a telescope at their system,” Harker said. “We see their star, all right, and although HD 76700-B is too small to be seen directly, we know its there because of the gravitational effect it has on its primary. But if there’s a planet located within a 1-AU radius, we can’t make it out because of this thing”—he pointed to the nimbus—“which appears to be some sort of dust cloud or planetary nebula.”

  “A dust cloud?” Andromeda peered closely at the image. “Within 1 AU? Wouldn’t that make any planets within the system... ?”

  “Uninhabitable?” Harker finished. “Yes, at least that’s what the science boys at the university told me when I checked with them.” He paused. “But if there’s no habitable planet anywhere in the system, why would the danui tell us otherwise? The nord, too, for that matter.”

  Andromeda absently tapped a forefinger against her lips. “I think I know where this is going,” she said at last. “We’ve been given an awfully nice horse. Now someone needs to check its teeth, and that’s why you’ve come to me.”

  “I was rather hoping that you’d say that.” Harker smiled. “The Navy is reluctant to send a cruiser on a first-contact mission to a race as touchy as the danui. It might be seen as a hostile action, and they don’t sound like a race we want to risk offending. On the other hand, you’re a merchantman captain who also happens to have previous experience with survey missions. Your ship is designed for this kind of assignment, and you still have people in your crew who’ve done this sort of thing before.”

  “So have you, Ted.”

  “I’m too old for this sort of thing...”

  Andromeda laughed out loud. “And I’m not?”

  “A gentleman never inquires about a lady’s age.” Harker gave her a sly wink. “Besides, everyone knows you’re barely eighteen.”

  “Is that in Earth or Coyote years?” She couldn’t stand flattery, particularly when it came to her age. And since a year on Coyote was three times longer than one on Earth, the second guess was a lot closer to the mark than the first.

  “Point taken.” Harker shrugged. “Truth is, after the time I took a ship closer to Kasimasta than anyone thinking straight had a right to do and still live, I swore an oath to Emily that I’d never undertake a hazardous mission like that again. That’s why I’m handling a milk run to Rho Coronae Borealis when I’m not flying a desk.” A pause. “Besides, aren’t you the one who just told me that she’s bored?”

  “I’m afraid I did.” Andromeda slowly let out her breath. “All right, I’m in. When do you want me to leave?”

  “Soon as you’re ready, I suppose.” Standing up from his chair, Harker leaned down to switch off his pad. “No need to rush. Take your time getting your crew together again. We’re still putting together our own team.”

  “You’re sending someone with us?”

  “Of course... From the Corps of Exploration.” As he slipped his datapad into his pocket, he seemed to notice the expression on her face. “Why, do you have a problem with that?”

  “Oh, no,” she lied. “None at all.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  IT TOOK NEARLY NINE HOURS FOR THE CORPS OF EXPLORATION gyro to travel from Hammerhead to Albion; the flight included a brief refueling stop in Midland, the only time the passengers had a chance to get out and stretch their legs. Like the other four members of Special Survey Team Three, Sean Carson spent most of the time either sleeping or reading. A long mission was ahead of them, and no one wanted to get on anyone else’s nerves with unnecessary chatter. Once the gyro was halfway across the Great Equatorial River, and the pilot announced that they would be landing in twenty minutes, the others began to stir, looking at one another as if it were the first time since they’d left Fort Lopez that they’d become aware of the fact that they were sharing an aircraft.

  No. That wasn’t entirely true. Sean was acutely conscious of the young woman seated beside him. The two of them said little to each other, but there was a reason for that; a few days earlier, he and Kyra had agreed that it was probably best that they put their romance on hold until the mission was over. It wouldn’t be easy, particularly since they’d lately discovered that there was nothing they enjoyed more than each other’s body. But the Corps frowned on sexual affairs among its members, and while most of their teammates politely looked the other way when Corporals Carson and Wright took off on their own, there was no sense in aggravating Lieutenant Cayce.

  There was nothing wrong with talking, though, so as the gyro began to lose altitude, he felt Kyra’s elbow nudge his own. “Colonial for your thoughts?” she murmured.

  Sean looked away from the window beside his seat. “Nothing, really,” he said quietly. “Just wondering how I’m going to handle my mother for the next few weeks.”

  Kyra glanced over her shoulder, making sure that neither Mark nor Sandy was paying attention to them. But Sergeant Dupree was studying his datapad while Corporal LaPointe gazed out the window on her side of the compartment, and if Lieutenant Cayce had overheard them from the gyro’s front right seat, he gave no indication. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” she whispered. “She’s probably just as nervous as you are.” She caught the dubious expression on his face. “All right,” she added, smiling slightly. “Almost as nervous.”

  Sean let out his breath. “You’ve never met my mother. She had her emotions surgically removed years ago.”

  Kyra raised an eyebrow. “You can’t mean that.”

  “Just wait. You’ll...”

  “Something you’d like to share with the rest of us, Corporal?” From his seat in the cockpit, Cayce addressed him even though he continued to look straight ahead.

  Sean felt his face grow warm, albeit more in anger than embarrassment. He could have sworn that the noise of the gyro’s twin props would have drowned out their conversation, but apparently Amerigo Cayce had sharper ears than Sean thought. Either that or, more likely, he just didn’t like having his people sharing secrets.

  “Just talking about the assignment, sir,” he replied, adopting an easyg
oing tone that he didn’t feel. “Wondering why we’re so lucky to get tapped for a first-contact job.”

  Lieutenant Cayce turned his head to look at him. “It’s not a first-contact mission... or ‘job,’ if you want to call it that. Our people met the danui a long time ago. It’s in the material you’ve been given if you haven’t read it already.”

  There was a note of accusation in Cayce’s voice, and it was impossible to miss the disdain in his eyes. Four days earlier, the survey team had been given intelligence reports pertaining to both the nord and the danui, with the expectation that the Corpsmen would study them thoroughly before the mission. Knowing Cayce, he’d probably read everything twice already, probably right after running twenty miles every morning at Fort Lopez.

  “I’ve read it, sir,” Sean said, meeting his gaze. “My mistake. This isn’t the first time we’ve met the danui... only the first time we’ve been to their home system.”

  An abrupt cough from the seat behind him. From the corner of his eye, Sean caught Sandy covering her mouth with her hand. The cough was an attempt to keep from laughing out loud. Although Mark displayed no more emotion than he usually did, he was staring at his datapad screen just a little too fixedly, as if trying hard not to chuckle at Sean’s subtle comeback. And while Kyra said nothing, Sean felt her slide her foot against his and, ever so gently, apply pressure against his toes.

  Cayce didn’t say anything. Then a smile slowly spread across his face. “That’s all right, Sean,” he said, assuming a cordiality neither of them had ever felt for the other. “I’m sure you have other things on your mind just now.” A pause. “So... looking forward to seeing your mother again?”

  Damn it, he had been eavesdropping. Either that, or he already knew that Sean’s relations with his mother were not very warm. “I’m sure we’ll be fine,” he said, staring back at Cayce until the lieutenant looked away.

  Behind him, he heard Mark and Sandy move restlessly. He half expected them to say something, but Mark’s Sa’Tongian beliefs prohibited him from any words or actions that might harm another, and, for once, Sandy refrained from the smart-ass remarks for which she was infamous. So they both remained quiet, and Kyra knew better than to ask him what she already knew: seeing his mother again was the last thing Sean wanted, let alone embarking on a mission with her.