Resurgence

“Nor can I, even with the superior eyes of my body. But the Pride of Orion reports the presence of a central star less than two hundred million kilometers away from us, orbited by a large train of planets.”

“Then why don’t we see them?”

“Because they are all, even the central star, at low temperatures. The Pride of Orion employs bolometers, able to detect and measure the radiation from objects only a few degrees above absolute zero. This is ridiculous!”

“What is?” Darya had heard—or imagined—excitement in Tally’s voice.

“Why, the readings. The star and most of the planets are cold, no more than a couple of hundred degrees absolute. But one of those planets—a big one, in a close-in orbit—is at only 1.2 kelvins. That is lower than the temperature of the universe’s microwave background radiation.”

“Isn’t that physically impossible?”

“According to the accepted theories of human and Cecropian scientists, it is. But perhaps the scientists of the Sag Arm employ different theories.”

Darya hardly heard E.C. Tally’s reply. A more disturbing thought had come into her head. Where was the beacon? Where was the flashing sign assuring them of the safe arrival of the others? Where was Louis Nenda?

Darya called for a new full-sky survey, centered on the frequencies of the signal beacon. She concentrated totally on the monitors as the results came in, ignoring E.C. Tally who was still babbling on at her side.

Nothing, nothing, nothing. The Have-It-All, along with all its crew, had vanished without a trace.

CHAPTER SEVEN The wrong place

Louis Nenda wished to travel separately from the Pride of Orion for a very specific reason. Julian Graves, as you might expect of a numb-nuts Ethical Council member, was a hopeless pacifist who did not believe in the use of weapons. Maybe it hadn’t been Graves’s idea to add a “survival team” to the party, but it was unlikely that he had fought against it. Arabella Lund—whoever she might be—had trained them, and she was one of Graves’s buddies. So he trusted her and them. Nenda, on the other hand, trusted nobody but himself, and he had made too many blind and desperate leaps through Bose nodes to leave to chance whatever might lie on the other side.

Long before the Have-It-All made the final Bose transition, the ship had every weapons port open and every weapon primed. All warning sensors were on full alert. The ship was ready to fire on command, to make another Bose jump, or to run a high-speed route for whatever cover might exist. Nenda had also silenced any device that might signal their presence to an unfriendly listener. If anyone’s signal beacon served as a homing signal for enemy fire, it would not be Louis Nenda’s. What those morons on the Pride of Orion chose to do was up to them.

The Have-It-All emerged from the node and floated free in space, its drives turned off. Nenda took one look at the warning displays and released a long-held breath.

“Nothing. Not one blessed thing.”

He meant that he saw no signs of anything dangerous, but Atvar H’sial, at his side, was receiving the input of other sensors tuned to her own echolocation vision. Her pheromonal output murmured, “Less than nothing.” When Nenda turned to stare, she became more specific. “We are supposed to find here the home world of the Marglotta, are we not? It is the presumed source of much strangeness and who-knows-what wonders of alien technology, priceless when returned to the Orion Arm. Tell me, then. Where are these treasures?”

Nenda turned on the raft of displays not dedicated to warnings. The Have-It-All should have emerged close to the Marglotta home star, somewhere within a complex stellar system. All that showed on his screen was a central disk of darkness against a faint background of distant stars.

He scanned the other monitors. “Nothing at any wavelength. What gives? Has the Marglotta star been turned into a black hole? And where are the planets?”

The pheromonal reply from Atvar H’sial was tinged with uneasiness. “There are planets, in abundance. But all are cold. Too cold for liquid water, too cold for a breathable atmosphere.”

“No air, no water. So there’s no life. Unless the Marglotta don’t need any of that?”

“But they do, Louis. Remember, they were air breathers just as we are air breathers. They could not survive on any of the worlds we see.”