Morgan's Return (42 page)

Makasa's face looked like a thundercloud. Morgan could quite imagine steam coming out of his ears. "It's a fine little ship, Makasa." She grinned. "You'll be quite comfortable."

Ravindra stood. "Shall we go, Admiral?"

Makasa glowered. "And if I refuse?"

"Then I'll shoot you with this." Ravindra thrust out a hand to Prasad. "Hand gun."

Prasad pulled the weapon from the holster at his hip and dropped it into Ravindra's palm.

"Set to stun, of course. I would prefer not to put my crew to the inconvenience of having to carry you, but if you force the issue, I will have no choice. Bear in mind, though, the after effects of being shot, even at stun, are not at all comfortable. Your choice." He leveled the weapon at Makasa's stomach.

His nostrils flaring, Makasa hoisted himself to his feet. If looks could kill, Ravindra would be in very small pieces. Morgan squeezed her lips together, suppressing her chortle of glee.

Ravindra handed Davaskar the gun. The captain and Jirra escorted the fat man out.

Chuckling, Morgan rose to her feet, and hugged Ravindra. "Sometimes I almost like you, you know that?"

He held her close, brushed her lips with his and released her, a token gesture, but she'd seen the look in his eyes. "They'll have to fight for you."

Yes, and she knew whose side she'd be on.

"What about the other two humans,
Srimana
?" Prasad asked in Manesai. "If we head for home from this location, we don't want them along."

Ravindra looked at Morgan. She was sure he'd have them dumped in the lander with Makasa. "We've got enough water, power isn't an issue. Air supply will last for thirty-two days, plenty to see us through to somewhere we can let them off."

His head inclined sideways, his signal to her for 'as you wish'. "Partridge is injured. We owe these men a little more than to dump them at the tender mercies of the military."

Davaskar stepped back into the common room, smiling. "Done. He'll be comfortable enough. Jirra has gone to release the lander."

"Excellent. Morgan, let's go and find our model ship. Carefully." Ravindra's amber eyes held her gaze for a moment.

"Captain, your permission to set course?"

"The ship is yours," Davaskar said.

"And Morgan, make sure the lander knows where we're going," Ravindra said. In answer to her raised eyebrows he added, "Just in case we've bitten off more than we can chew."

Morgan watched the lander slip out of the hold and into space, its dark shape hardly visible. It should be safe here, in orbit around one of Ushas's moons. Bastard. Oily, fat bastard. And she'd thought he liked her. You never could tell, could you?

With the coordinates set for a few degrees shy of the target,
Vulsaur
eased out of orbit. Morgan couldn't suppress a quiver of unease. What were they going to find accompanying the model ship?

Chapter 36  

R
avindra gathered the crew in the common room. Partridge and Eastly had insisted they wished to be involved in any discussion, and to Ravindra's surprise, Morgan had supported the two humans. Tullamarran had dressed the archaeologist's leg and encased the limb in a brace. Pain-killers seemed to be doing their job well enough, although Partridge's skin looked pale and tight. Eastly sat so close beside Partridge, that their shoulders touched.

"You all know what we're doing." Ravindra glanced at the 3D projection of the star chart floating above the table. One point glowed red. "We have no idea what we'll find. The point is in an area of clear space, beyond the debris cloud of a red giant's planetary system. I have asked Morgan to bring us out of shift space near that debris cloud, so we can look without being observed."

"How far from Ushas's star?" Jirra asked.

"Ten light years." Morgan moved a pointer to the spot that was Usha's sun. "Not a big jump. We'll come out in less than an hour."

Davaskar had his arms folded, his head tilted to one side. "What do you think we'll find?"

"We don't know," Ravindra said. "Morgan?"

She shrugged. "Who knows? It could be nothing, just a point where this model ship is sitting. We really don't know if this has anything to do with the aliens. It could be a coincidence, but it's a bit too convenient."

"You mean the timing?" Prasad said.

"Yes. Possibilities that come to mind." Morgan ticked the points off on her fingers. "The model ship is just sitting there, doing nothing, which is what I expect. Two, this is a collection point for an alien fleet, as in they jump to here, then disperse. Three, there's some weird bit of physics we don't know about happening. A distortion in the spacetime continuum or something, which has created a portal. Four, anything else beyond our comprehension."

Partridge and Eastly had their heads together, muttering.
Rude
. Ravindra smacked a hand on the table. "If you have anything to contribute?"

They looked at each other like guilty schoolboys.

Partridge cleared his throat. "We wondered what the sky we're looking at would look like from Ushas."

"It's hardly relevant."
Idiots
.

Morgan raised a hand. "Hang on. We might as well follow any lead. I'll project on the flat screen for you. The view from the same latitude as the laboratory, with this area in the sky."

A clear night sky appeared, the sort that can be seen from any planet, some stars brighter than others, some closer together, a hint of red or blue, and here and there, the blur of a nebula.

Eastly fairly bounced in his chair, pointing. "See? See? I told you. That's the dragon. That big red star is the dragon's eye."

Ravindra couldn't see any sort of pattern. But then again, the Kotara on his home planet saw patterns in the sky, too. One was a vulsaur. He could only ever see it if he squinted.

Eastly rose to his feet and, using his finger, traced a line of stars. "See? This is the tail, the wings are here, sort of stretched out. That's the head, with the large eye."

"So?" Ravindra said.

"There's a legend."

Oh, stars in space
. "Don't waste my time."

Eastly subsided, and sat down again.

"Wait, Ashkar. Let him finish," Morgan said. "Sometimes legends have a point of truth. And that's actually one of the constellations Partridge's grandmother drew in her notes."

Ravindra flicked a hand at the fellow. It wouldn't hurt to listen, he supposed.

Partridge took up the tale. "The earliest inhabitants of this planet had a story, handed down from one generation to the next. The dragon," he pointed to the screen, "that thing there, was in constant battle with a giant snake. Eastly, show them the serpent."

Eastly got up and traced another line of stars, the head starting not far from the so-called dragon's head. "It's pretty clear, that one."

"Only if you have a superlative imagination," Davaskar said.

Jirra and Tullamarran both sniggered.

"Is there a point to this?" Ravindra asked.

"Every now and then, so the legend goes, the snake would have young. They could be seen for a time in the sky, then they would disappear, eaten by the dragon." Partridge must have seen the look on his face. "I think those young appeared pretty much where this point is, where we're going."

Davaskar rolled his eyes. "Space is not two dimensional. The stars in your dragon, for instance, are up to five thousand light years apart."

"Yes, I know that," Partridge said. "But for these primitive people, that's what it looked like."

"So the young were not stars? Not round things?" Morgan asked.

Surely she wasn't taking this nonsense seriously?

"Not as I understand it. The legend states small snakes, which puts me to mind of a wiggly line." Partridge flicked an exasperated glance at Davaskar, who was shaking his head sadly.

"So we're talking electromagnetic radiation visible over a large distance. And probably not a nebula or a globular cluster," Morgan said.

Ravindra adjusted his position in his chair. What point was there in this? "Is there anything at that location now?"

"Not according to this map, no. But that doesn't mean there wasn't in the past." She put a finger to her lips. "It almost sounds like a solar flare without a star, or a burst of radiation from a black hole, although neither of those really fit. Maybe there's some galactic oscillation which occurs at a set interval. Like a comet passing around a star. This thing opens up due to… I don't know, gravitational forces? Electromagnetic rays exciting something?"

"That would make sense if your model ship was acting as an amplifier, or a relay," Jirra said.

"Depending what's there." Morgan shrugged. "I guess we'll never know."

"We'll get our chance to find out very soon," Davaskar said. "We'll be out of shift space in twenty-five minutes."

"It's a bit odd, though." Partridge pulled at his lip with his teeth. "Wouldn't the locals at Ushas have noticed an aberration in space?"

Morgan gazed at him. "You mean these baby snake things? Now?"

He nodded.

"There wouldn't have been anything to see. Light will take over ten years to arrive, so this event took place years ago. We'll get a better idea if we can see the light when we're closer."

Eastly's eyes brightened. "So, it wasn't me?"

Ravindra skewered him with a look. "No, you didn't do it. But you did send them an invitation."

Eastly's shoulders sagged.

Partridge put a hand on his friend's arm. "Oh, that's a bit absurd."

"Not at all. I think the arrival of the model ship was a calling card," Ravindra said.

"It was an accident," Partridge admonished him.

Morgan snorted. "Sure. Who knows? Maybe those coordinates were going to be our ancient friend's next try with his model ship, and all Eastly did was kind of press the 'go' button. The fact remains he did, and they're here. And we have to deal with it."

Eastly summoned up some courage, his eyes flashing. "How would that work? Why would this tiny, model ship lead to the aliens arriving? You're just guessing."

"The only thing we can do is guess," Ravindra said. "We don't know anything about these beings, except what their ships look like. They might be tiny creatures. The model could have been a full sized ship to them. Or there might be no living beings in those ships at all." Partridge opened his mouth. "Don't interrupt. We can only work with what we have. The model ship is sent and a few days later the aliens appear. We must assume it is not a coincidence."

His crew agreed. A chair creaked when somebody moved.

"As to how the ship triggered a reaction…." Morgan lifted one shoulder. "Maybe the aliens monitor that spot from their side of the sky. Maybe they see some dragon and snake constellations, too. Or whatever. They notice this alien artifact, the model ship, and they follow the beacon. Makes sense to me." She turned to Jirra. "Better check the shields, we might need all the protection we can get."

Jirra directed a look at Davaskar for permission, then hurried off.

"For the rest of us, I can't really give any orders because we don't know what we'll find. If a fleet is collecting there, all we can do is warn the humans, and withdraw. Just be ready to act when needed. That is all." Ravindra fixed each of them with a look.

***

When the warning bells sounded for the return to normal space, Ravindra went up to sit in the bridge. Morgan was already there, sitting in the engineer's chair. Davaskar had nominal control. Everyone else was in the common room.

The sound of the engines changing from the smooth whine of the shift drive to the deeper hum of the main drive, signaled the change of status before 'transfer complete' flashed on the screen. The vision cleared as the sensors took over. The very concept of 'space' was a vast nothing, which was true, of course. But space was filled with wonders, incredible sights that a man could never comprehend. Distant nebulae like vast, colored clouds around blazing spots of light, globular clusters, dark clouds of dust, bright smudges that he knew must be galaxies, multi-colored points of light so close together they looked like brilliant jewel boxes stuffed with stars. But he'd never seen anything like this. Not in all his years in space.

How to get his head around what he saw? How would a man compare? At home he'd seen the southern lights dance in the long winter nights, the effect of the interaction of cosmic rays with the magnetic field. Cold and eerie, long, green plumes arced through the sky. The natives feared the lights. Ravindra's tracker friend had told him they believed the Nimbia were bolts thrown by the evil ones, trying to find a way in. A silly superstition. But out here, on the edge of forever, he could almost believe. The great plumes didn't move the way the Nimbia did. At least, he expected they did, but they were so vast, the movement disappeared. Like lightning flashes in the murky atmosphere of a gas giant, that seemed to go forever. Like the Nimbia, these lines of energy were greenish, too.