The Ship Who Saved the Worlds

by Anne McCaffrey

  "They might have been taking things that didn't belong to them," Keff said.

  "Nonsense!" Noonday said. "Some of our most honored citizens have taken ship with the Melange, sworn allegiance, and brought home goods so that we may fly the stars."

  "Who are the Melange?" Keff asked, shouting to be heard.

  That question provoked the greatest outburst of them all. Noonday gestured for silence, and turned a hard stare on Keff.

  "Who are you that you do not know of the Melange?"

  "We are travelers," Keff said. "We come from the Central Worlds. That means something to you," he added, as some of the Thelerie conferred hastily among themselves. "Central Worlds is a vast confederation of intelligent peoples, governed by common laws to aid life, health, and prosperity. We go from place to place, meeting new people, and sending word of them back to our Central Committee. I promise you, no word of the Thelerie or of the Melange has ever gotten back to the CenCom."

  "But how can this be?" Noonday asked, spreading out all four of his hands. "Humans have given us so much, for so many years. They made themselves one with us, gave us helpful innovations. Why, see," he gestured around him with a narrow wing-finger, "these lamps would never be so small or bright without human machines."

  "Cari?" Keff said, turning his body full toward the baroque sconce.

  He heard a sharp whistle. "It's a dilute form of heavy-water fuel, Keff, very clean and hot-burning, the sort of high-quality stuff I'd use myself if I could get it. If those valves weren't so small, that whole room would go up, blammo!" Keff blanched.

  "Where does the fuel come from?" he asked.

  "It lies here and there in the deep places," Noonday said, gesturing vaguely with a few of his hands. "The technology to make use of it was brought to us by humans to our mutual benefit, for which we are very grateful. We assumed that all humankind was behind their good intentions."

  "Are there more? More innovations?"

  "But, of course," Noonday said, with a gentle smile. It was clear he and the others still did not believe Keff's protestations of ignorance. "For everything the Melange takes from Thelerie, they always bring us gifts, more than fair exchange."

  "The Thelerie couldn't be using more than a few million barrels a year for light and heat," Keff said, sublingually. "Leaving a source of quality rocket fuel for whoever knows to come and take it."

  "I see why now," Carialle said, "but I still don't know who, or if they connect to me."

  The youngest Thelerie, Midnight, stood up and placed an indignant wing-hand on its breast. "You have come here with many accusations. You wrong us, and you wrong our friends and benefactors."

  "We do not mean to be offensive," Keff said, "but I assure you we tell the truth. You set great store by honesty. I tell you that we left behind in the Cridi system ten of your people, and they were part of a force that lay in ambush for us." Keff continued over the horrified protestations. "That force was responsible for the destruction of a human-run ship from the Central Worlds. The wreckage of that vessel was found near the ruins of at least three Cridi craft, and parts of many others. I swear to you that this account is true. I have video records of this, and of the beings who confronted us on a planetary base. You see why we must find out the truth here and now."

  "I would like to see these 'video,' " the young Ro-sayo said.

  "You shall," Keff said. "We do not bring these complaints without proof."

  "What you are saying is that Thelerie have been involved in acts of piracy," Noonday said. His noble face was drawn into lines of pain. Keff felt concern for the leader.

  "Cari, is he all right?" he asked under his breath.

  "Not a cardiac involvement," Carialle said, after a moment's assessment, "but his pulses are running very fast. He's sustained a shock, which is no surprise, considering how many bombshells you've lobbed in the last few minutes."

  "What do you want of us?" the leader asked at last.

  "It would seem that most of our questions could be answered by your friends the humans," Keff said. "Can we meet the Melange?"

  Chapter Fifeteen

  "Where is the other human?" Noonday asked, looking around, over, and under the party as they flew out of the capital city toward the northeast. "I would like to meet it."

  "Perhaps later. Carialle stays with the ship at all times," Keff said. "She's . . . very attached to it."

  Carialle blew a raspberry in his aural pickup, with the volume turned up just a little higher than was strictly necessary. She observed the neural monitor jump as Keff winced.

  "I speak to her by means of small transmitter-receivers on my person," Keff said, pointedly ignoring her. "She hears our words, and sends her greetings to you."

  "Ah, thank you and her. I know little of human customs. We in the Sayad do not interact with the Melange ourselves," Noonday admitted, flying ahead of his escort with Keff and Tall Eyebrow for a private word. His great wings beat the air a few times, then spread out to glide on a gusty updraft. "They visit Thelerie only irregularly. I myself only met humans once, very long ago. It was a great honor."

  Watching from the camera eye on Keff's chest, Carialle admired the easy play of muscles. Noonday's wings were shaped like those of an eagle, but covered with plushy, golden fur like the body of a bat. The Thelerie were certainly a beautiful folk. She had had plenty of time to go over the anatomical studies and scans they had taken of the griffins left behind on the base, but this was her first time to see them in action, in their own habitat, stress-free. She was attracted to the grace of movement, the artistically right integration of six limbs. Their bodies seemed lithe and smooth, their velvet pelts almost caressing her visual receptors. Should time and circumstances permit, Carialle wanted to ask a few of them to sit, or rather, fly for her, so she could paint them. Carialle's brief glimpse of one of the guards suggested that it was carrying young right now. A scan showed a tiny, six-limbed creature in a thick caul like a soft eggshell inside the uterus. Carialle felt protective of the unborn young. In spite of her worries and misgivings, she was finding herself liking the Thelerie. She chided herself for her sympathies, remembering that these charming beings were responsible for countless deaths, and possibly her own long-ago peril.

  "Who, then, is the primary interface with the Melange?" Keff's voice asked. Carialle saw that his pulse rate was up. She checked her telemetry, and found the group was flying at approximately twelve hundred feet, far above his comfort level.

  "The Sayas of the Space Program meets with them," Noonday said. "We will ask if it is known when their next appearance is to be."

  "Then, why do you all speak our language?" Keff asked, gesturing vaguely.

  "Oh, that is in anticipation of when we reach out to the stars," Noonday said, and his eyes widened joyfully. "We want to be ready to communicate at once with the blessed humans who are there."

  "Not an unbiased party, is he?" Carialle said, wryly. "I notice he doesn't consider it an honor to meet the Cridi, and they're just as alien as we."

  "We're not blessed, Sayas, just another species like you," Keff said.

  "Not to us," Noonday said, shaking his head. "It is from a legend that comes from the depths of our history, telling the story about the wingless ones who would come one day and take us where our wings cannot. A most beloved story, by children especially. And one day, you came, and made it true."

  "Well, not us. This Melange, whoever they are . . . er, we are honored to have your assistance," Keff said, hesitantly, "and, forgive the discourtesy, but why are you taking us to meet this Sayas? Wouldn't this task be easily relegated to a junior Ro-sayo, or a guard?"

  The elder's wings tilted back for just a moment, then he flapped hastily to catch up. His forehead was creased, ruffling the plush into furrows.

  "Thunderstorm is my child," he said, then said defensively, "Where aptitude exists, should not responsibility follow? If there is any wrongdoing, I wish to know at once. We Thelerie are law-abiding folk. Our . . . moral life
is strong. As you could see, my assembly was much distressed at the notion that Thelerie were involved with crimes against another people, especially a life-form so physically helpless."

  "We are not helpless," Big Voice said indignantly, floating his travel globe close to the Sayas. "You have said that before, but see, we are capable."

  Noonday reached out a claw hand to tap the globe. Big Voice ducked automatically. "That is true. By coming along on a flight with those believed to be enemies, I am also demonstrating a measure of trust in you for the assembly. I prove you can be friends and allies. As you say, we and the . . . Cridi are close neighbors. Neighbors should aid one another in time of need. And in spite of all, even if these charges against Thelerie be true, we must continue to trust in humans. So much of our culture over these last many years is involved intimately with this relationship. They gave us electricity, communication, many things."

  "Heat exchangers, humidity controls . . ." Carialle chimed in. "The Thelerie should properly be in a pre-industrial age. The baroque decor is reasonably appropriate to the period, as it was on Earth before electricity. Humans brought all this to them, gave them machines, power, and then space travel, all in the space of fifty years. Strictly against the code of the Central Worlds."

  "Well, these humans seem to be doing quite a lot against the code of the Central Worlds," Keff said, under his breath. "We'll know more when we've talked to Thunderstorm. How long until we get there, Noonday?"

  "Soon," the Sayas said. The group passed over the ridge of the mountain range separating one great, yellow plain from another. Spare clouds riding the sky above them drew long lines that extended down over the mountaintops in both directions. Noonday directed them down into the narrow shadows between ragged, upthrust monoliths. "This way, for another eighth-arc of the sun at least."

  "Plenty of time to get to know one another," Keff said cheerfully, stretching out on his side in the air beside the Thelerie. The Cridi continued to fly him along, and his pulses dropped toward normal as he became more involved in the conversation. Carialle flipped her image of the Sayas from horizontal to vertical to compensate for her brawn's change in position. "You say you're Thunderstorm's parent. Are you his mother or his father? And is he a he or a she?"

  "Such differences are not known in our biology," Noonday said, beginning in a lecturer's tone. "Unlike you, we are all made the same way, only changing roles as we mate for offspring. I have borne or sired four children in my life. You would say I am Thunderstorm's mother, for I bore that child sixty-seven turns of the sun ago. We live a long time, here."

  Carialle made certain the recording on Keff's signal was perfectly clear. She boxed in auxiliary memory to act as backup, to assure data redundancy. She knew her brawn wouldn't want to let a single erg of information get away.

  It was a blow to him that the CK-963 team wasn't really the discoverer of the Thelerie, but he intended at least to be the documentarian whose data made the Encyclopedia Galactica, if not the Xeno files. Carialle wished she could have such easy short-term goals, but then, she'd never thought like a softshell. Keff had made her realize her humanity, even made her like it, but she knew they weren't very similar in their outlooks. He was ephemeral. One day, when their twenty-five year assignment was over, she'd be suddenly without him, and it would be a long and sad forever thereafter. It was times like this when she understood how very much she valued him. Keff, with his good humor, optimism, and his enthusiasm for diving into any task no matter how difficult or unsavory, was the best thing that had ever happened to her. He was so fragile, so easily injured, and she was so far away. If the Cridi allowed any harm to come to him . . . !

  Realizing she was allowing herself to become melancholy, she gave her system a quick eighth-measure of carbohydrates. If her brain was playing such emotion tricks on her, she must be hungry. She had surely been ignoring the gauges that indicated her blood sugar was unusually low.

  Carialle knew she'd been working her system hard. Ever since they hove into this part of space, old memories had been surfacing, giving her flashbacks during her rest-times, and intruding into her conscious mind while she was doing easy tasks like calculations. She saw visions of her first brawn, Fanine, relived the explosion and the rescue, even cast a critical mental eye on the early paintings she had done of space-scapes while in therapy. That should all be behind her, she thought. The interference had made her have to concentrate twice as hard.

  Her sensors had been gathering information on the Thelerie ever since they had landed. It was time and past time to send another transmission to the Central Worlds, as a follow-up to the one she had sent from the Cridi system, but she was hesitant. Every event changed their perceptions of the situation. If she and Keff were wrong about the pirates, if the whole construct the two of them had made up about the location and origin of the raiders was incorrect, it was the end of her career, at least. Carialle hoped Keff wouldn't be held responsible—they were her incorrect perceptions based on her mistakes, arising from her disaster. She could always plead guilty to constructive kidnapping, if worst came to worst, to spare Keff an official reprimand. Not that it was likely she would face criminal proceedings, but it was best to be pessimistic where the odious M-C was concerned.

  And yet, she found it difficult to believe that this charming and seemingly honest race was involved in piracy and illicit salvage. Of course it wouldn't be illicit for them to remove parts from a derelict ship; they wouldn't know it was a legal requirement to post a claim to a wreck with the space agencies. The Sayad had no rules dealing with space salvage yet. And yet, griffins—Thelerie—had been aboard the ships chasing them with mining lasers. Who was fooling whom?

  She began to build up a dossier of facts to accompany her message. In it, she stressed the pre-electronic environment in which the Thelerie lived. The most intriguing fact about the modern developments that she and Keff had observed was the limitation of their use. It said clearly that the Thelerie did not understand the mechanisms or the physics behind them. Therefore . . . therefore, another agency was at work. Or was it? Couldn't there simply be a group of griffins who had demanded an education in practical science from spacegoing captives? Then, how had they reached into space in the first place? She and Keff needed that final link in the pattern. With luck, they'd have it before her message reached the CenCom.

  On her screen, the Sayas stretched out his beautiful wings and dipped down toward a cluster of buildings on the open plain. Their body-harness glinting in the bright sun, the six guards flew into a protective formation around him. What a picture! Keff and the Cridi dropped back a hundred meters, allowing the Thelerie to approach the installation first.

  "My, what a nice little fuel storage facility," Carialle said, just before the image of the square stone building with fluid transfer towers disappeared from Keff's camera eye.

  "Isn't it, though?" Keff said. "Now our surmise has another leg to stand on."

  Thunderstorm's office was very elegantly furnished, though the structure itself was little more than a stone roof on pillars. The walls consisted of corner-to-corner screens that let in the fresh breezes and bright, yellow sunlight. The cool wind felt so good to Keff after the dusty flight that he opened his filters a little more to allow the circulating air to touch his face. The atmosphere contained really very little ammonia, more of a far-off smell than an all-round stink. It might still harm tender Cridi hides, but exposed human skin might be able to last for longish periods. He thought he could almost take off his envirosuit, but then Carialle would probably go spare. Keff wanted to prevent anything from upsetting her during the investigation of this world. She had trials enough with the entire Mental Sciences division clamoring for brain scans, thanks to the Inspector General. Though it might put him in the brig, Keff would love to relieve the itch in his big toe by burying it halfway up the IG's excretory tract.

  Keff occupied himself while they waited for Thunderstorm by studying his surroundings. This installation, at least, wa
s accustomed to receiving humans. The doorframe was over two meters high, instead of the meter and a half that would be adequate for Thelerie to enter on four feet. That seemed to be the only structural consideration. The furniture was all made for griffin comfort—not that Keff would have found it onerous to stretch out on floor pillows, and the sling behind the desk was perfectly adequate as a backless chair. As in the government building, Keff saw very little wood, all of it used as ornament rather than in construction. Some of the small outbuildings around the office seemed to be built of adobe, others of fieldstone and concrete. The Thelerie might have had only one main building material, but they used it with imagination.

  To his surprise, they also had paper. Keff grinned at himself. He'd been looking for computer terminals in a culture that still had open cesspits. The broad-topped desk was heaped with white, squarecut sheets, covered with the same square script he recognized from the attack ship's files. Those computers had been the aberration. This setting seemed more in line with their sociological development.

  "Cari, there's hardly any trees here. What's this made of?" he whispered, moving close to the deskful of documents. His forefinger pointed at the paper, in clear view of the camera eye.

  "Straw fiber," she replied at once. "A combination of rice and some native fiber; hard to tell which one without a closer molecular scan. The ink's a combination of an organic compound and finely ground mineral powder. Like India ink, it'd last for centuries. Here comes someone."

  Keff looked around. Carialle must have detected the approach of a flying body on sensors. Yes, there . . . Keff saw a shadow, steadily growing in size as the body that cast it neared the ground. He heard voices, the Sayad guards calling out greetings, and a single mellow reply, as a Thelerie of middle years rounded the corner of a pillar, and entered.

  Thunderstorm looked remarkably like his mother, but with a broader head and wider feet that lent him an endearingly awkward gait. His coat had only begun to show flecks of white. His smile, when he saw Keff, was an echo of Noonday's sweet expression. Thunderstorm looked suddenly wary as he came closer, and realized he did not recognize Keff. But the evidence was clear: this being interacted frequently and closely with humans.