“Quantum inseparability?”

“Signals will pass instantaneously between a communicator’s two halves. But those halves must once have been in physical contact. Once joined, they can never be truly parted. Like people,” I mused. “It takes more than time or distance—”

“I begin to… understand.”

“The components of this station, and all its clones throughout the Galaxy, must have been carried here from a central exchange. That’s where the repairmen we’ve just, ah, encountered, must have come from. And the exchange has to be at the Xeelee home base, at the Galaxy core. Three days’ travel for the Xeelee.”

“So they had to come. But the Xeelee Prime Radiant is a matter of speculation. You did not know—”

I grinned ruefully. “Well, I knew for sure I’d had it unless I took a long shot. Your precious logic demonstrated that.”

More bubbles from the stomach, and the voice grew weaker. “But your… ship is destroyed. Your victory does not bring success.”

“Yeah.” I sat in crunchy dirt beside the dying Statue. “I guess I didn’t like to think this far ahead.” The depth of focus seemed to shift; light years expanded around me.

Even the Statue was company. “You have been a worthy… opponent.”

“You’re repeating yourself,” I said rudely.

“My ship is at… the planet’s nearer pole, one day’s journey from here. You may be able to adapt its life system to your purposes.”

“Ah… thank you. Why?”

“Because you would probably find it anyway. And I hope your species will… be tolerant of mine in the future.”

I stayed with the Statue until it bubbled to silence.

I looked back ruefully at the hole the Xeelee had left. There went a hundred fortunes.

But, Lethe’s waters could take the money. I’d take away the Statue’s ship, and at least the principle of the instantaneous transmitter. That ought to be enough; resourceful creatures, we humans.

I felt Tim’s presence steal over me; it was as if his hand crept into mine, reasserting our inseparability. I picked up what was left of the zap gun; it would make a great gift for him. Then I walked over fire-crisped slag to the pole.

The Statue, that Kafka cockroach, reminded me of me. I wondered uneasily if that brave prospector would have found me as repellent, as inhuman, as the creature who tried to rob her.

I knew that the quantum inseparability communicator became a key enabling technology for the expansion of mankind. It made the prospector her fortune, and her fame.

And the expansion continued.

“Watch,” Eve said. “Learn…”

The Switch

After the ship landed, Krupp and I made our reluctant way to the airlock. We found Ballantine already there, climbing into his neat little suit.

“Wouldn’t you know it, Gorman,” Krupp growled at me as he thrust his tree-trunk legs into silvered fabric. “That little bastard Ballantine always has to be first.”

I searched for my helmet in a cluttered locker. “Well, it is his job, Krupp. He’s the xenotechnologist… A landfall is the only time he gets to do anything useful around here.”

Krupp pulled his gigantic shoulders straight. “Ask me, that creep doesn’t ever do anything useful. Waste of a berth.” Little Ballantine heard all that, of course. Krupp didn’t care. Nor would you, I guess, if your biceps measured wider than the other guy’s chest. But I thought I saw Ballantine’s big-eyed face redden up just a little inside his helmet.

Captain Bayliss came stomping down the corridor. She was still rounding us all up for the EVA. Soon there were a dozen bodies, the entire crew, crammed into that airlock. Alien air whistled in and we grumbled quietly.

“Stow it!” Bayliss said irritably.

“Ah, Captain, these science stops are a waste of time,” Krupp rumbled. “We’re a cargo freighter, not a damn airy-fairy survey ship—”

“I said stow it,” the Captain snapped. “Look, Krupp, you know the law. We’re obliged to make these stops. Every time his instruments detect something like that wreck outside.”

Well, we all knew who the “his” referred to. Ballantine kept his face turned to the door’s scuffed metal; but his shoulders sloped a bit more.

On that ship we were all alike, all semi-skilled cargo hands. All except for Ballantine. He was the xenotechnologist the law said we had to carry.

So he wasn’t exactly one of the guys.

But it wasn’t his fault. I suppose we were a little hard on him — Krupp maybe harder than most. Mind you, not so much that he deserved what he got…

The outer door slid upwards. We tumbled down the ship’s ramp and spread out like an oil drop on water.

Swinging my arms with relief, I looked around. There was a double sun directly overhead, two white ovals like mismatched eggs. The sky was pinkish, washed-out. On the horizon a range of ancient hills made a splash of gray…

And in the center of the purple plain before me was the ruin of a Xeelee spacecraft. It looked like the blackened skeleton of a whale.

We moved tentatively towards it; Ballantine scampered ahead. Small fists clenched, he peered up at ribs that arched high over him. Then he dropped to his hands and knees and brushed excitedly at the dust.

Krupp came carrying Ballantine’s data desk, a big trunk-sized unit that he’d propped on one wide shoulder. Captain Bayliss shook her head in disgust. “Always got to show off, haven’t you, Krupp? You know that’s a two-man job.”

Krupp grinned, a little strain showing in his rocky face. “Aye, well, Ballantine normally does it. I just thought he deserved a break.” There was a ripple of appreciative laughter. Krupp dumped the desk hard in the middle of the wreck.

Ballantine came storming up to him. “You bloody fool! You could smash something—”

Krupp considered him thoughtfully, like a biologist about to perform a dissection.

The Captain came strolling over, sending Krupp away with a simple glance. She poked one suited toe through the wreck’s crumbling skin. “Seems to me there’s not a lot left to smash, Mr. Ballantine,” she said smoothly.

“No,” Ballantine said, his breath shaking. “The Xeelee guard their technology like gold dust. When a Xeelee ship crashes, self-destruct mechanisms burn up anything that survives. But they aren’t perfect. The base of this ship is intact, and there’s some sort of control box down there.” He pointed. “A two-way switch…”

We collected probes from the data desk and were soon crawling like muscle-bound crabs over the ship’s bones. We all had our assigned tasks; with gloved fingers I poked tentatively at my Berry phase monitor, wishing I knew what it was for.

The Captain yelped in alarm. I dropped the instrument and whirled around.

Over the center of the wreck, a disc of dust as wide as a room had drifted up into the air. At its heart the data desk tumbled like an angular balloon. Captain Bayliss stood there staring, her mouth slack.

Evidently Ballantine had turned his two-way switch.

We gathered round eagerly. A working Xeelee artifact! The company paid good bounty for such things. Ballantine reached down to his switch — it was a button set in a tiny box — and turned it back again. The data desk fell to earth with a surprisingly hard thump; Ballantine watched thoughtfully.

The Captain cleared her throat, taking short, determined paces. “Well?”

“It’s a gravity nullifier,” the xenotechnologist said excitedly. He peered into instrument displays. “Above this bit of floor there was about one percent gee.”

The Captain was in control again. “Gravity nullifier? Big deal. That’s standard technology; got one in the ship. No bounty there, I’m afraid.”

Disappointed, we turned away; but Ballantine trotted after Bayliss. “Captain, the ship’s nullifier consumes gigawatts. Its central generator fills a room! This thing must work on completely new principles—”