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  He nodded.

  “Thank you for helping me in line.”

  He nodded, wondering how much longer he could keep doing that. Sammy understood his predicament.

  (“Let’s take a chance. English might not sound that different than Lutz to her. Mutter to yourself how you want to respond, a phrase or two, as though you’re trying to remember the Kaulikan Basic, and I will set your translator to immediately give you the corresponding words.”)

  Are you busy this Friday evening, he thought, scratching his forehead for a moment before realizing he might scratch away some of his gold stain. Despite the difficulties in the interaction, he was actually beginning to enjoy himself. But there was no sense in beating around the bush.

  “We are lost,” he whispered to himself. “See tie wohl.” “Could you please show us around?” “Dohl heht?” Was that it? He repeated the Kaulikan phrases to her. Her big eyes appeared to widen and she nodded.

  “Because of my arm injury I have free time before study period. Would you like to see our farms and our garden?”

  “Yes.” “Ki.” “Ki,” he repeated. She peered at him.

  “Are your eyes all right?”

  He looked away, back the way he had come. Strem was watching. “Fumes.” “Zeowt.” He gestured to his eyes. “Zeowt,” he said.

  She was concerned, the doll. “Are they healing quickly?”

  He nodded and stood suddenly, pointing to Strem, indicating he had to go get his friend. That was fine with Vani. He hurried away, pleased with his success and amazed at how easy it was to get on friendly terms with people in this place.

  “Well?” Strem said impatiently, having finished the last of his candy salad.

  “There are no bathrooms in this entire ship.”

  Strem would have look green without the contacts. “But that’s impossible. What do they do when...? How do they...? You’re pulling my leg?”

  Eric laughed. “I’m sure she can show you where the toto is. She has some free time to play guide. By the way, we’re Lutzers.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Beats me.”

  “Did you ask her to take us to engineering?”

  “Not yet. She wants to show us her farms.”

  Eric did; he was suddenly curious about every facet of these people’s lives. “We need to build up some sort of rapport with her before we ask her about the coolant.”

  “We may just build up suspicion. I say we go for broke, ask her where we can get the ethylene glycol.”

  “She’ll ask what we want it for.”

  “Tell her we’ll show her. Then when she gets it for us we can lead her back to the air lock and stun her and be on our merry way.”

  “You’re not going to stun Vani!”

  “Vani?” Strem laughed. “Hey, it won’t hurt her. And when she wakes up, she’ll have a great mystery to gossip about. What’s the matter with you, Eric? You can’t be falling for this girl. She isn’t even a girl. I bet she doesn’t even know how to kiss.”

  “I am not falling for her,” Eric said coolly. “Sammy, what do you think?”

  (“Cleo and Jeanie...”)

  (“Get her alone and give her a kiss,” Cleo said. “I want to see what she does.”)

  (“She strikes me as the take-it-slow type,” Jeanie said. “I don’t think you should kiss her or stun her on the first date.”)

  “I think you will feel less pressure once you visit the toto,” Eric told Strem. It bothered him slightly that his whole encounter with Vani had been monitored by the others.

  “You’re not the only one who can talk to her,” Strem said.

  “Yes, I am. I told her you were deaf.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what you said to do earlier.”

  “I was only joking!”

  “So am I. Come on, it’s no big deal. She’ll show us her farms for a few minutes, and then we’ll steer her toward engineering.”

  Strem didn’t say anything, but Eric couldn’t help noticing how his hand strayed to the bulge under his jacket where his gun was hidden.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Vani was waiting patiently for them. Eric noticed that she had eaten less than half her food. She said she had not been very hungry the last few cycles. They dumped their trays at the edge of the cafeteria in what resembled an old-fashioned water well, and walked towards the exit. While leaving, Strem put an elbow in Eric’s ribs.

  “Toto,” Eric said, searching about. Vani understood immediately, pointing to two doors not far from where they had deposited their trays. Strem took off at a brisk walk.

  “Your friend is big,” Vani said.

  Eric nodded. “Strem.”

  “Strem, Eric,” Vani said to herself. “Where on Kashi were you from?”

  Kashi was the name of their home planet. He slumped his shoulders, tried to look miserable. “It is hard to remember,” he replied. Vani appeared sympathetic.

  Eric almost burst out laughing when he saw Strem walk into the ladies’ rest room first. Strem was in and out of the door in a flash. When he finally returned, he was smiling. Mission accomplished.

  “They’re just like the ones on Earth,” he whispered.

  They entered a circular glass elevator along with a dozen other people and headed ‘up’ toward the axis. In the cramped quarters a Kaulikan accidentally hit Vani’s arm, making her gasp. The gentleman quickly apologized. Eric figured the bone was probably broken. Too bad he couldn’t take her to Excalibur, it could be put under the Healer and be repaired in an hour.

  The farms took up the equivalent of a dozen of the other low-ceilinged levels, curving up and away in both directions, clearly encircling the entire wheel. The agricultural plots were supported on layers of open platforms and scaffolds. Eric wouldn’t have wanted to be around if they got hit with a meteor. The whole place would probably come crashing down. They appeared to be entering a fruit-tree section, except none of the trees were taller than knee-high.

  As the elevator opened there was a significant increase in the honey odor Eric had initially noticed. Vani led them away from the others, along a narrow gully flowing with a thick translucent gel. They were up on the mid-levels and Eric was thankful for the handrails. The nearby fruits were as hairy as miniature coconuts, only they were shaped at though they were inverted pears, with the stem fitting out of the heavy end.

  “Would you like one?” Vani asked.

  “Ki,” Eric said. Vani broke off three, one for each of them, and Strem quickly took a bite and almost cracked his teeth; they were rock-hard. Vani gave her now familiar puzzled expression and banged her fruit on the railing. The husk split, she pulled it off and threw it into the soil. Eric followed her example and was rewarded with the taste of another sugar-saturated delicacy. Strem threw his whole fruit away.

  “I planted these,” Vani said. “I attend to these plots.”

  Eric told her they were very good. He scowled at Strem.

  Suddenly, loud chimes filled the air and people everywhere stopped what they were doing. Eric was still uncertain how to read Kaulikan emotions but there was no mistaking the sudden heaviness in the air. The forward and backward walls began to unravel as their numerous panels tilted edge on, like the opening of window blinds that could still be found in houses on Earth. Space was outside, and the ship’s other two massive wheels, both of whose walls were also opening, turned in unison with them before the snowy nebula of the heart of The Milky Way. And in the other direction, beyond the hot spear of the ion drive, was the nova, whose bright light shone across the farm, seeming to cause the rows of plants to stand up and take notice. The chimes halted.

  “Dawn,” Vani said. “I used to cherish it.”

  The translation did not convey the sadness in her tone, but Eric didn’t need the computer’s help. Other shades of Kaulikan emotion could be misunderstood. Strange how sorrow seemed a thing above confusion.

  “Would you like to go elsewhere?” she asked.

  Eric gl
anced at Strem, whose expression was also easy to read. “Let's go to engineering,” he told her.

  The elevator they took to the central shaft was different from the others; it was padded from top to bottom. Eric was glad he hadn’t finished his lunch. As they rose through the levels, his weight dropped rapidly, until a deep breath was enough to bobble him off the floor. Strem appeared perfectly at ease, however, and Vani was quickly regaining her good cheer.

  The transfer point between the rotating wheel and the stationary axis was fascinating in its simplicity. This time a door in the ceiling of the elevator opened above them, which made sense when considering the physics of the set up. Eric remembered that his own people’s first Earth space stations, before the advent of the graviton flux, had had similar peculiarities. All they had to do here was fly up and grab a pole that ran along a wide cushioned wall. Once he had hold of the pole his perspective was immediately set straight, and it was clear it was the elevator that was really moving. He watched as it curved overhead and disappeared.

  “Do you have your bands?” Vani asked.

  Their cute escort had wrapped an elastic strip of cloth around her forehead, holding her floating hair out of her face. Eric shook his head and began to spin like a top. Vani laughed.

  “There will be bands with the scooter packs,” she said, pulling herself smoothly along the pole. Eric followed at her feet – her slippers were not unlike his own, he noted – admiring the muscled curve of her calf through the hem of her pants. He accidently kicked Strem in the head.

  They came to a cabinet that opened with the standard hand-to-the-light trick. The scooter packs fit on their backs and were designed to help them maneuver in the free fall. Eric was disappointed with their bulk and the obvious limited steering mechanism. He assumed they worked by the expulsion of compressed air; it wouldn’t do to use rockets inside. Fortunately, there were headbands, and they were able to get their wigs out of their eyes.

  A cave-like opening was nearby, and they entered into a dark cavern. This was the first part of the ship they’d seen where space was freely squandered. Perhaps the area had held supplies that had already been consumed or else transferred to another part of the fleet.

  They hooked onto a lit-up pulley system, and as Eric’s eyes began to adjust, he realized they were traversing the end of a tank that appeared to run all the way to the front of the ship. Was the majority of the central shaft nothing but a fuel container? he wondered. With each passing year, the tank would be less full. They might travel all the way to another system, arriving only after generations had lived and died in the cold depths, and fail to find an inhabitable planet. And they would be out of fuel.

  As the sides began to disappear they switched pulleys and directions, heading for the rear of the ship. A low pulse began to throb the nocturnal air. What light there was came from the other side of a complete metal lattice up ahead. The edges began to reappear as the axis narrowed. Vast networks of pipes knit the walls, around which Kaulikan men and women hummed in their scooters. All this equipment, Eric thought, maintained by thousands, and the hyper drive fit in a desk and needed a tune-up every ten years.

  The pulley deposited them at the lip of an edifice that would have been a dangerous place to be had there been gravity. It was time for their backpacks. While Vani activated her jets, steering by a knob that fit in the palm of her hand, and floating effortlessly forward, Strem inadvertently turned his scooter on full and went rocketing past at a frightful speed.

  Vani reacted instantly, accelerating and joining his tumbling body in midair. She was able to stabilize Strem and redirect his pack’s nozzles, thus counteracting his forward momentum. Eric thought this was a remarkable feat considering her injured arm. He inched to where Strem hovered sheepishly. Vani looked more puzzled than ever.

  “Have you two used scooters before?”

  They were alone in a tunnel that led to a beehive of machines and people. The throbbing had deepened, making it necessary to speak loudly, “Ki,” Eric said.

  Vani considered for a moment. “Wouldn't you rather visit our garden? You must have heard that it is one of the most beautiful in all the worlds.”

  Strem insisted, going through the initial muttered English routine, that he wanted to see engineering. To Vani, he must have sounded like a beast.

  “Which world are you two from?”

  Sammy had prepared them for this question, and Eric gave her an appropriate designation, a combination of letters and numerals. She did not know everything about every ship and therefore did not press the point. But they were not yet out of the woods.

  “Engineering is always the same, always noisy. Why do you want to visit there?”

  Eric told her that since they were so close, they would like to see it before going onto the garden. It was an answer that wasn’t an answer.

  “I believe I should find you an escort that is fluent in Lutz. You would enjoy your visit more.”

  That wouldn’t do at all. Eric racked his brain for a good reason why they should stay together. All he could come up with was a line about her company being more enjoyable than anything another might be able to show them.

  Were compliments rare among the Kaulikans? Her face filled with a huge smile. Was it possible, by her people’s standards, that she was ugly, and seldom received male attention? Vani never again mentioned another escort and seemed to hover closer to him as they continued their exploration.

  Engineering overloaded Eric with its complexity. After the tour he was left with only a few clear impressions: giant black coils made up of wire thicker than a man's body, housed in transparent cylinders fanned with sparkling gases; computer boards larger than the Excalibur itself, registering with mazes of oscillating lights every discharge of the coils; and crackling bolts of artificial lightning, seen through filtered viewing portals that must have been several feet thick, arcing far out into space, generating the purple ion waves they had first glimpsed from hundreds of millions of miles away. It was from here the thunderous pulse originated, and for the Kaulikans to go on, it would have to beat a long, long time.

  Even Strem was astounded by the machinery and for a while was content to watch and wait. Then suddenly, while they were pulling themselves around the belly of one of numerous spheric tanks, he pulled Eric aside. Vani continued forward, unaware.

  “We’ve tasted the food and seen some of the sights,” Strem said. “Let’s hit her with the game question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Strem frowned. “For some reason, which probably has to do with her extraterrestrial vision, she seems drawn to you. The question will sound less suspicious coming from you.”

  Eric glanced toward Vani, who was beginning to look over her shoulder, floating against the backdrop of a wide net of fiber optics. “Sammy, how is the thermometer?” he asked.

  (“So far, not bad, though it continues to creep up. But let me warn you, it won’t heat up at a steady pace. At one point, it will take off.”)

  “We can’t waste any more time,” Strem said.

  Vani was waiting patiently at a distance, understanding that they wanted to talk alone. Had the situation been reversed, had they been Kaulikans trying to penetrate an Earth station, they could never have come so far. Earth people were much more demanding of appropriate behavior.

  “Are you having fun?” Eric asked.

  “What kind of question is that?” Strem said.

  “You were hoping to find excitement outside the web. Well, what have we got here?”

  “I’m the captain of this mission. I can’t enjoy myself until I know Excalibur is safe.”

  Eric sighed. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  What was wrong with him? He was purposely prolonging the emergency. Curiosity was not a good enough excuse. Neither was a pretty face. They should get the coolant and leave. “Vani!” he called.

  A blast of her scooter brought her back. He stopped her with his arm, touching her waist. She smiled. “Have you seen eno
ugh of this noisy place?”

  “No,” he said, “Strem works with the refrigerator and cooling systems on our world and he's interested in seeing your world's systems.”

  “But will they not be the same as yours?” Engineering was obviously not one of her favorite places to be.

  “Each world,” Eric said, “has its own unique way of carrying out certain tasks. Strem wants to see your personnel in action.”

  Vani gave Strem a curious look. “All right.”

  She took them to a fairly large chamber full of pipes, pumps, and people, and where there was an unmistakable chemical smell in the air – ethylene glycol. Vani noticed Strem’s excitement. He pointed her toward a tank that bulged from a corner. It was all so perfect, Eric knew there had to be a catch. There was a valve that could be opened with a handle. Strem turned it slightly. A tiny dribble of coolant bubbled out. Then a bell began to ring. Every head in the room turned. A Kaulikan gentleman shot over. Vani intercepted him and there followed a brief discussion. The guy’s message was clear: don’t mess with the valves. The man turned off the alarm and returned to his station. Eric could see Strem counting the number of people in the chamber. He could read his thoughts: only eight measly Kaulikans. Strem looked at him, and Eric shook his head.

  “Is this what you wanted to see?” Vani asked.

  Eric nodded and inquired if there was another place where they stored ethylene glycol.

  “I do not know. Does Strem not know?”

  “Are people always on duty here?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I want to speak to you alone, Eric,” Strem said.

  Eric excused themselves. They flew into an unoccupied comer. Vani must be getting some pretty weird ideas about them, thought Eric. But maybe there wasn’t any crime in Kaulikan society, and she couldn’t conceive of someone having unethical motives.

  Strem didn’t beat around the bush. “I wish you’d brought a gun.”

  “It won’t work. You heard how the alarm sounds.”

  “And I saw where it turns off.”