Resurgence

Nenda’s homeworld, Karelia , wasn’t the sort of place that went in for formal education. Survival was the limit of most people’s ambition. Maybe because of that, Louis despised anything that might be labeled as philosophical thought. But he had learned a thing or two in the school of hard knocks, and one of them was that if somebody or something did a job better than you ever would or could, it made sense to let them. J’merlia had instincts and eyesight and reflexes that Nenda could not match. So, J’merlia would fly the ship.

In the same way, Kallik had superior analytical ability, while Atvar H’sial possessed a great knowledge of Builder history. Nenda suspected that Darya Lang knew even more, but he wasn’t about to head into that territory. Atvar H’sial’s satisfaction when Darya was left behind on the other ship had sent a pheromonal message you could read at a hundred meters.

And amid all this talent, what did Louis Nenda himself do? He knew the answer to that. He did anything left over that had to be done, and he examined anything that made his guts rumble uneasily for no defined reason. While the Have-It-All and the

Pride of Orion closed in on each other, he took a closer look at the planets orbiting their frozen primary.

Ignoring the usual space rubble of minor planetoids and comets, the count was unusually high. The tracking equipment on the Have-It-All reported forty-seven sizeable bodies, eighteen of them massive enough to maintain some kind of atmosphere. Few of them did—most were simply too cold—but one oddity would have caught the eye of a space traveller far less seasoned than Louis Nenda. Of the five worlds orbiting within the life-zone region of a normal star of equivalent mass, one planet was a monster larger than all the others combined. It was also the coldest one, almost as big as the star around which it orbited. Based on diameter alone that should make it a gas-giant with a gravitational field strong enough to sweep clear a broad swath of space. That had not happened. The deep ranging system on the Have-It-All revealed the existence of celestial debris, including objects no bigger than orbiting mountains, crisscrossing the orbit of the monster world.

You could not expect to see much from eighty million kilometers, but Nenda focused the Have-It-All

’s best scope on the planet.

The instrument’s smart sensor complained at once. This target provides no emitted radiation at any wavelength useful for imaging. The body is close to absolute zero.

“I know. Do the best you can.”

That may still prove unsatisfactory. There is nothing to work with but a meager supply of photons provided by the reflected light of distant stars. Image dwell time may be unacceptably long.

“I’ll be the judge of that. Show us what you’re gettin’ as you go, and stop moanin’.”

The image built slowly. At first it was no more than the faintest speckling of points of light, providing the ghostly outline of a disk that might well be no more than a man’s wishful thinking. Louis Nenda waited. He had the patience of a man who had once spent two days and nights immersed in the oozy swamps of Doradus Nine, ears and nostrils stopped while he breathed through a narrow straw and troops of Doradan Colubrids sought to exact revenge for the death of their ancestral leader. No chance. If necessary, he would have waited a week.

Photon by unpredictable photon, the picture on the screen strengthened and solidified. Nenda was not seeing the banded cloud patterns of a typical gas-giant. He did not expect it. At such low temperatures, all gases must change state to become liquids or solids. Rather, he thought to see the typical fractal cracking of a methane or nitrogen iceworld surface. But that too was incorrect.

Just what was

the pattern, slowly building on the display? He saw linear features, straight as though ruled on the distant ball. Or did he imagine them? He was well aware of the tendency of human eyes to “connect the dots,” making from random patterns of light and dark a structured mental picture.

He said to the sensor, “Hey, I need an independent check. Am I really seein’ straight lines on the image you’re producin’, or am I making ’em all up?”

They are real. Would you like an enhancement of linear features?

“Not yet. Wait another ten minutes, then you can—”

The blast of a siren through the interior of the Have-It-All cut off his instructions. It was followed at once by J’merlia’s soft voice. “We are about to make our rendezvous with the Pride of Orion. Be prepared for possible anomalous accelerations.”