Starplex

The Waldahud’s two right eyes were already locked on Lansing, and a moment later the two left ones converged on him as well. “The choice is yours. You have my report.” He gestured at the datapad Keith was still holding. “I have suggested we send a probeship to find the child. I should be on that ship.”

“All you want,” said Keith, “is access to the darmats for your people. Bringing home their child would earn you much gratitude.”

Jag moved his lower shoulders. “You do me a disservice, Lansing. Indeed, the darmats do not yet know that there are a thousand entities aboard this ship, let alone that they represent a quarter-sixteen of races.”

Keith thought for a moment. Damn, he hated being pushed. But the bloody pi—but Jag was right. “Okay,” he said. “Okay—you and Longbottle, if he’s up to it. Is the Rumrunner in any condition for another mission?”

“Dr. Cervantes and Longbottle had it serviced at Grand Central,” said the Waldahud. “Rhombus has confirmed that it is spaceworthy.”

Keith looked up. “Intercom: Keith to Thor.”

A hologram of Thorald Magnor’s head appeared floating above Keith’s desk. “Yes, boss?”

“How are we for travel through the shortcut?”

“No probs,” said Thor. “The green star is far enough from it now to allow just about any entrance angle. You want me to program a run?”

Keith shook his head. “Not for the whole ship. Just for the Rumrunner and a one-person travel pod. I’m going to have to return to Grand Central for a meeting with Premier Kenyatta.” He looked back at the Waldahud. “Despite what you just said, Jag, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

* * *

It was the ultimate grand tour: around the galaxy in twenty shortcuts—a quick survey of all the active exit points. The Rumrunner, with Jag and Longbottle aboard, zoomed away from Starplex’s docks and, after Longbottle’s requisite joyride, headed for the shortcut.

As always, the exit point expanded as the ship touched it. The purple discontinuity moved from bow to stern, and then the ship was zooming through a different sector of space. There were no spectacular sights to be seen at this first exit: just stars, somewhat less densely packed than they had been on the other side.

Jag was intent on his instruments. He was doing a hyperspace scan, looking for any large mass within a light-day of the exit. Finding the darmat child would be hard. Dark matter, by its very nature, was very difficult to detect—all but invisible, and the radio signals it put out were very weak indeed. But even a baby darmat was going to mass 10³⁷ kilograms. It would make a dent in local spacetime that should be detectable in hyperspace.

“Anything?” asked Longbottle.

Jag moved his lower shoulders.

Longbottle arched in his tank, and the Rumrunner curved back toward the shortcut.

“Again we go,” said the dolphin. The ship dived toward the point—

—and popped out near a beautiful binary star system, streamers of gas flowing from a bloated, oblate red giant toward a tiny blue companion.

Jag consulted his instruments. Nothing. The Rumrunner did a loop-the-loop and came down upon the shortcut from above, diving through, a burst of Soderstrom radiation washing over the ship, the spectacle of the binary pair being replaced by a new starscape, with a great yellow-and-pink nebula covering half the sky, a pulsar at its heart cycling dim and bright over a period of a few seconds.

“Nothing,” said Jag.

Longbottle arched again, and plunged toward the shortcut.

An expanding point.

A ring of purple.

Mismatched starfields.

Another sector of space.

A sector dominated by another green star pulling away from the shortcut.

Longbottle maneuvered furiously to avoid it.

Jag’s scan took longer; the nearby star overwhelmed the hyperspace scanner. But, finally, he determined the darmat child was not there.

Longbottle rotated in his tank, and the Rumrunner did a corkscrew flight back into the shortcut. When they popped out this time, it was through Shortcut Prime, near the galactic core, the initial shortcut that had presumably been activated by the shortcut makers themselves. The sky blazed with the light of countless tightly packed red suns. Longbottle nosed a control, and the ship’s shields increased to maximum. They were close enough to the heart of the galaxy to see the coruscating edge of the violet accretion disk surrounding the central black hole.

“Not here,” said Jag.

Longbottle maneuvered the ship back to the shortcut in a simple straight line. They hadn’t been close enough to be caught by the singularity’s ravenous gravity, but he was taking no chances.

They next exited into another seemingly empty region of space, but Jag’s hyperspace scanners indicated the presence of substantial concealed mass.

“Suppose not do you?” asked Longbottle.

Jag shrugged all four shoulders. “It couldn’t hurt to check,” he said, adjusting the shipboard radio to search near the twenty-one-centimeter band.

“Ninety-three separate frequencies currently in use,” said Jag. “Another community of darmats.”