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without beacons-"
He saw how she struggled not to be too sanguine. "That isn't a true location," she said. "I can't imagine
how we will ever lead anybody back to precisely those stars."
"Nor can I," he said. "And it doesn't matter. Because, well, we took an adequate sample. We can be
sure now that practically every star in the cluster heart has planets that are made of heavy elements. So it
isn't necessary, for their
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exploitation, to go to any particular system. In addition, we've learned about hazards and so forth, gotten
information that'll be essential to other people. And therefore"-he chuckled-' I guess we can't file a claim
on your entire Cloud Universe. But any court will award you ... us ... a fair share. Not specific planets,
since they can't be found right away. Instead, a share of everything. Your crew will draw royalties on the
richest mines in the galaxy. On millions of them."
She responded with thoughtfulness rather than enthusiasm. "Indeed? We did wonder, on Makl, if you
might not be hoping to find abundant metals. But we decided that couldn't be. For why would anyone
come here for them? Can they not be had more easily, closer to home?"
Slightly dashed, he said, "No. Especially when most worlds in this frontier are comparatively metal-poor.
They do have some veins of ore, yes. And the colonists can extract anything from the oceans, as on
Serieve. But there's a natural limit to such a process. In time, carried out on the scale that'd be required
when population has grown . . . it'd be releasing so much heat that p'anetary temperature would be
affected."
"That sounds farfetched."
"No. A simple calculation will prove it. According to historical records, Earth herself ran into the
problem, and not terribly long after the industrial era began. However, quite aside from remote
prospects, people will want to mine these cluster worlds immediately. True, it's a long haul, and
operations will have to be totally automated. But the heavy elements that are rare elsewhere are so
abundant here as to more than make up for those extra costs." He smiled. "I'm afraid you can't escape
your fate. You're going to be... not wealthy. To call you 'wealthy' would be like calling a supernova
'luminous.' You'll command more resources than many whole civilizations have done."
Her look upon him remained grave. "You did this for us? You should not have. What use would riches
be to us if we lost you?"
He remembered that he couldn't have expected her to carol about this. In her culture, money was not
unwelcome, but neither was it an important goat. So what she had just said meant less than if a girl of the
Commonalty had spoken. Nevertheless, joy kindled in him. She sensed that, laid her hand across his, and
murmured, "But your thought was noble."
He couldn't restrain himself any longer. He laughed aloud. "Noble?" he cried. "I'd call it clever.
Fiendishly clever. Don't you see? I've given you Kirkasant back!"
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She gasped.
He jumped up and paced exuberant before her. "You could wait a few years till your cash reserves
grow astronomical and buy as big a fleet as you want to search the cluster. But it isn't needful. When
word gets out, the miners will come swarming. They'll plant beacons, they'll have to. The grid will be
functioning within one year, I'll bet. As soon as you can navigate, identity where you are and where
you've been, you can't help finding your home-in weeks!"
She joined him, then, casting herself into his arms, laughing and weeping. He had known of emotional
depth in her, beneath the school reserve. But never before now had he found as much warmth as was
hers.
Long, long afterward, air locks linked and she bade him good night. "Until tomorrow," she said. "Many
tomorrows, I hope." "And I hope. I promise." He watched the way she had gone until the locks closed
again and the ships parted company. A little drunkenly, not with alcohol, he returned to the saloon for a
nightcap.
"Turn off that color thing," he said. "Give me an outside view."
The ship obeyed. In the screen appeared stars, and the cloud from which stars were being born. "Her
sky," Laure said. He flopped on to the couch and admired.
"I might as well start getting used to it," he said. "I expect I'll spend a lot of vacation time, at least, on
Kirkasant."
"Daven," said Jaccavrie.
She was not in the habit of addressing him thus, and so gently. He started. "Yes?"
"I have been-" Silence hummed for a second. "I have been wondering how to tell you. Any phrasing, any
inflection, could strike you as something I computed to produce
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Though unease prickled him, he leaned forward to touch a bulkhead. It trembled a little with her engine
energy. "And I, old girl," he said. "Or else you also are an organism. We're both people."
"Thank you," said the ship, almost too low to be heard.
Laure braced himself. "What did you have to tell me?"
She forgot about keeping her voice humanized. The words clipped forth: "I finished the chromosome
analysis some time ago. Thereafter I tried to discourage certain tendencies I noticed in you. But now I
have no way to avoid giving you the plain truth. They are not human on that planet."
"What?" he yelled. The glass slipped from his hand and splashed red wine across the deck. "You're
crazy! Records, traditions, artifacts, appearance, behavior-"
The ship's voice came striding across his. "Yes, they are human descended. But their ancestors had to
make an enormous adaptation. The loss of night vision is merely indicative. The fact that they can, for
example, ingest heavy metals like arsenic unharmed might be interpreted as simple immunity. But you will [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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