Starplex

Cat’s Eye and a dozen other adult darmats moved closer to the shortcut, calling out to the baby. Over the bridge speakers, PHANTOM played a translation of what Cat’s Eye was saying, but many of the words were missing; the leader of the darmats was not limiting his vocabulary to the few hundred words Rissa and Hek had learned. “Come forward… forward… toward… you are… we… come… hurry… do not… forward… forward.”

Rhombus was using the deck-one array to monitor the emerging baby, but so far it hadn’t transmitted a word of its own, at least not on any frequency even close to the twenty-one-centimeter band.

Lianne Karendaughter was shaking her head. “It’s not moving at all under its own volition,” she said. “It must be dead.”

Keith ground his teeth together. If it was dead, all this was for nothing. “It’s possible,” he said, at last, trying as much to convince himself as Lianne, “that a single darmat can’t move on its own. They may need to play off each other’s gravity and repulsion. The baby may not yet be far enough out for that.”

“Forward,” said Cat’s Eye. “Forward… come you… forward.”

Keith had never heard of anyone trying so slow a passage through a shortcut before—there was an unspoken sense that one should hurry through, that to tarry would be tempting fate, lest the magic of the thing fail.

At last the baby completed its passage. The shortcut collapsed, although, moments later, it opened slightly several times as additional antigrav buoys popped through from the other side.

The darmat child was moving away from the shortcut, but only under momentum. It had not yet—

“Where… where…”

Still a French-accented voice, but, in a stroke of rare creativity, PHANTOM had chosen a child’s tones for this translation.

“Home… back…”

Thor let loose another thunderous cheer. “It’s alive!”

Keith found his eyes misting over. Lianne was openly crying.

“It’s alive!” Thor shouted again.

The darmat baby did, finally, begin to move, heading toward Cat’s Eye and the others.

The speakers changed back to the voice PHANTOM had assigned to Cat’s Eye. “Cat’s Eye to Starplex,” it said.

Keith keyed his mike. “Starplex responding,” he said.

Cat’s Eye was quiet longer than the round-trip signal time would have required, as if he was searching for a way to express what he wanted to say using the limited vocabulary available. Finally, simply, he said, “We are friends.”

Keith felt himself grinning from ear to ear. “Yes,” he said. “We are friends.”

“The child’s vision is damaged,” said Cat’s Eye. “It will… become equal to one again, but time is required. Time, and absence of light. Green star is bright; not here when child left.”

Keith nodded. “We can build another shield, to protect the baby from the green star’s light.”

“More,” said Cat’s Eye. “You.”

Keith was momentarily puzzled. “Oh—of course. Li-anne, kill all our running lights, and, after warning people, douse the lights in all rooms with windows. If people want to put their lights back on, tell them to draw the shades first.”

Lianne’s beautiful face was split by a wide smile. “Doing so.”

Starplex went dark, and the darmat community moved toward the great ship and their newly returned child.

* * *

The Rumrunner popped through the shortcut, followed moments later by the PDQ. Radio communication soon assured their crews that Starplex was all right, and the ships curved in toward the docking bays. As soon as the Rumrunner was safely aboard, Jag headed for the bridge.

* * *

Keith was still talking to Cat’s Eye when Jag entered the bridge. The director turned to the Waldahud. Thank you, Jag. Thank you very much.”

Jag nodded his head, accepting the comment.

The voice of Cat’s Eye came over the speakers. “We to you an incorrect,” he said.

A wrong, thought Keith. They did us wrong.

“You into point that is not a point had to move with high speed.”

“Oh, it wasn’t so bad,” said Keith, ever the diplomat, into the mike. “Because of that we got to see our group of hundreds of millions of stars.”

“We call such a group a”—PHANTOM translated the new signal—“galaxy.”

“You have a word for galaxy?” said Keith, surprised.

“Correct. Many stars, isolated.”

“Right,” said Keith. “Well, the shortcut put us six billion light-years from here. That meant we were seeing our galaxy as it looked six billion years ago.”

“Understand looking back.”

“You do?”

“Do.”

Keith was impressed. “Well, it was fascinating. Six billion years ago, the Milky Way didn’t have its current shape. Um, I guess you don’t know this, but it’s currently shaped like a spiral.” A light flashed on Keith’s console, PHANTOM notifying him that he’d just used a word for which there was as yet no darmat equivalent in the translation database. Keith nodded at PHANTOM’s cameras. “A spiral,” he said into the mike, “is… is… “He sought a metaphor that would be meaningful; terms such as “pinwheels” would convey no information m the darmat. “A spiral is…”