Old Hannes was already grumbling. He helped pass out the breathers with ill-disguised reluctance. The chief artificer was conversant in Trinary, of course, but he found the threelevel logic difficult. To cap things off he was a lousy poet. He obviously didn't look forward to trying to discuss technical matters in whistle rhyme.
They had their work cut out for them. Several of the picked petty officers and crew that had accompanied them on the rescue effort had gone back to the ship, escorting Toshio and Hikahi and the other victims of the stranding waves. Only a short score of fen remained in the party. Should anything dangerous come up they would have to take care of it themselves. No help from Streaker could arrive in time to do any good.
It would have been nice to have Gillian here, Tom mused. Not that inspecting alien cruisers was her area of expertise, but she knew fins, and could handle herself if things got sticky.
But she had work of her own aboard Streaker, trying to solve the puzzle of a billion-year-old mummy that should never have existed in the first place. And in an emergency she was the only other person aboard Streaker, barring, possibly Creideiki himself, who knew about the Niss machine, or its potential value if given access to the right data.
Tom smiled as he caught himself rationalizing again.
Okay, so there are good and logical reasons why the two of us can't be together right now. Take it for what it's worth. Do a good job here, and maybe you can be back to her in a few days.
There had never been any question, from the moment they had met as adolescents, that he and she would make a pair. He sometimes wondered if their planners had known in advance, in choosing gametes from selected married couples, that two of the growing zygotes would later fit together so perfectly — -down to the simple telempathy they sometimes shared.
Probably it was a happy accident. Human genetic planning was very limited, by law and custom. Accident or no, Tom was grateful. In his missions for the Terragens Council he had learned that the universe was dangerous and filled with disillusionment. Too few sophonts — even those equipped for it — ever got enough love.
As soon as the breathers had been distributed Tom used the sled's speaker to amplify his voice. "Now remember, everybody; though all Galactic technologies are based on the Library, that collection of wisdom is so huge that almost any type of machine might be inside that hull. Treat everything like it's booby-trapped until you've identified it and rendered it harmless.
"The first goal of Team One, after silencing the wreck, is to find the main battle computers. There may be a record of the initial stages of the fight above. That information might be invaluable to the captain.
"And would you all keep an eye out for the Library glyph? If you find that symbol anywhere, please note its location and pass word to me. I'd like to see what kind of micro-branch they were carrying."
He nodded to Tsh't. "Is that all right with you, Lieutenant?"
Streaker's fourth officer clapped jaw and nodded. Orley's politeness was appreciated, but she was likelier to bite off her own tail than overrule any suggestion he made. Streaker was the first large expedition ever commanded and operated by dolphins. It had been clear from the beginning that certain humans were along whose advice bore the patina of patronomy.
She called out in Trinary.
* Team One, with me -
To diffract above, listening
* Team Two, with Suessi -
To taste for treasure
* Team Three, with Orley -
To aid him scheming
* Drop nothing of Earth here -
To betray our visit
* Clean it up after -
If you must shit
* Think before acting -
In tropic-clear logic
* Now Streakers, with stillness -
Away! *
In precise order three formations peeled off, one group embellishing with a synchronized barrel roll as they passed Orley's sled. In obedience to Tsh't's orders, the only sound was the rapid clicking of cetacean sonar.
Orley rode the sled until he was within forty meters of the hulk. Then he patted Hannes on the back and rolled off to the side.
What a beautiful find the ship was! Orley used a hot-torch spectrograph to get a quick analysis of the metal at the edges of a gaping tear in the vessel's side. When he determined the ratios of various beta-decay products he whistled, causing the fen nearby to turn and look at him curiously. He had to make assumptions about the original alloy and the rate of exposure to neutrinos since the metal was forged, but reasonable guesses indicated that the ship had been fabricated at least thirty million years ago!
Tom shook his head. A fact like that made one realize how far Mankind had to go to catch up with the Galactics.
We like to think of the races using the Library as being in a rut, uncreative and unadaptable, Orley thought.
That appeared to be largely true. Very often the Galactic races seemed stodgy and unimaginative. But…
He looked at the dark, hulking battleship, and wondered.
Legend had it that the Progenitors had called for a perpetual search for knowledge before they departed for parts unknown, aeons ago. But, in practice, most species looked to the Library and only the Library for knowledge. Its store grew only slowly.
What was the point of researching what must have been discovered a thousand times over by those who came before?
It was simple, for instance, to choose advanced spaceship designs from Library archives and follow them blindly, understanding only a small fraction of what was built. Earth had a few such ships, and they were marvels.
The Terragens Council, which handled relations between the races of Earth and the Galactic community, once almost succumbed to that tempting logic. Many humans urged co-opting of Galactic models that older races had themselves co-opted from ancient designs. They cited the example of Japan, which in the nineteenth century had faced a similar problem — how to survive amongst nations immeasurably more powerful than itself. Meiji Japan had concentrated all its energy on learning to imitate its neighbors, and succeeded in becoming just like them, in the end.
The majority on the Terragens Council, including nearly all of the cetacean members, disagreed. They considered the Library a honey pot — tempting, and possibly nourishing, but also a terrible trap.
They feared the "Golden Age" syndrome… the temptation to "look backward" — to find wisdom in the oldest, dustiest texts, instead of the latest journal.
Except for a few races, such as the Kanten and Tymbrimi, the Galactic community as a whole seemed stuck in that kind of a mentality. The Library was their first and last recourse for every problem. The fact that the ancient records almost always contained something useful didn't make that approach any less repugnant to many of the wolflings of Earth, including Tom, Gillian, and their mentor, old Jacob Demwa.
Coming out of a tradition of bootstrap technology, Earth's leaders were convinced there were things to be gained from innovation, even this late in Galactic history. At least it felt better to believe that. To a wolfling race, pride was an important thing.
Orphans often have little else.
But here was evidence of the power of the Golden Age approach. Everything about this ship spoke silkily of refinement. Even in wreckage, it was beautifully simple in its construction, while indulgent and ornate in its embellishments. The eye saw no welds. Bracings and struts were always integral to some other purpose. Here one supported a stasis flange, while apparently also serving as a baffled radiator for excess probability. Orley thought he could detect other overlaps, subtleties that could only have come with aeons of slow improvement on an ancient design.