"I think the stars can wait until tomorrow too," Jassilane said as he moved past. "Right now I'm more interested in that Earth food. Have you tried that stuff they call pineapple yet? It's delicious--never anything like that on Minerva."

Hunt found himself standing beside Garuth in the crowd forming around the door. He looked up at the massive features. "Would you really do it, Garuth. . . go all the way to still another star, after all this time?"

The giant stared down and seemed to be weighing the question in his mind.

"Perhaps," he replied. "Who knows?" Hunt sensed from the tone of the voice in his ear that ZORAC had ceased operating in public-address mode and was now handling separately the different conversations taking place on either side. "For years now my people have lived on a dream. At this time more than any other, it would be wrong to destroy that dream. Today they are tired and think only of rest; tomorrow they will dream again."

"We'll see what tomorrow brings at Pithead then," Hunt said. He caught the eye of Danchekker, who was standing immediately behind them. "Are you going to sit with us at dinner, Chris?"

"With pleasure, provided you are prepared to tolerate my being unsociable," the professor replied. "I absolutely refuse to eat with this contraption hanging round my head."

"Enjoy your meal, Professor," Garuth urged. "Let the socializing wait until afterward."

"I'm surprised you heard that," Hunt said. "How did ZORAC know we were talking in a group of three? I mean, it must have known that to put it through on your audio as well."

"Oh, ZORAC is very good at things like that. It learns fast. We're quite proud of ZORAC."

"It's an amazing machine."

"In more ways than you perhaps imagine," Garuth agreed. "It was ZORAC that saved us at Iscaris. Most of us were overcome by the heat when the ship was caught by the fringe of the nova; that was what caused many of the deaths among us. It was ZORAC that got the Shapieron clear."

"I really must stop calling its brethren contraptions," Danchekker murmured. "Wouldn't want to upset it or anything if it's sensitive about such matters."

"That's okay by me." A different voice came through on the circuit. "As long as I can still call your brethren monkeys."

That was when Hunt learned to recognize when a Ganymean was laughing.

When they all sat down to dinner, Hunt was mildly surprised to note that the menu was completely vegetarian. Apparently the Ganymeans had insisted on this.

Chapter Ten

The period of leave that Hunt and Danchekker had originally intended to spend on Jupiter Five had expired anyway, so the two scientists traveled the next day with the mixed party of Earthmen and Ganymeans to Pithead Base. The journey was indeed a mixed affair, with some Ganymeans squeezing into the UNSA medium-haul transporters while the luckier Earthmen traveled as passengers in one of the Shapieron's daughter vessels.

The first thing the aliens were shown at Pithead was the distress beacon that had brought them across the Solar System to Ganymede; already that event seemed a long time ago. The aliens explained that ordinary electromagnetic transmissions could not be received inside the zone of localized space-time distortion that was generated by the standard form of Ganymean drive, and for this reason most long-range communications were effected by means of modulated gravity pulses instead; the beacon used precisely this principle. The Ganymeans had picked up the signal after they had at last shut down their main drives and entered the Solar System under auxiliary power, which was fine for flitting around between planets but not much good for interstellar marathons. Their subsequent bewilderment at what they found--Minerva gone and an extra planet where there shouldn't have been one--could well be imagined; and then they had picked up the signals. As one UNSA officer said to Hunt: "Imagine coming back in twenty-five million years' time and hearing something out of today's hit parade. They must have wondered if they hadn't really been anywhere at all and had dreamed the whole thing."

The party continued on through a metal-walled underground corridor which brought them to the laboratories where preliminary examinations were normally made of items brought up from the ship below. The room that they found themselves in was a large one divided by half-height partitions into a maze of work bays, each a clutter of machinery, test instruments, electronics racks and tool cabinets. Above it all, the roof was barely visible behind the tangles of piping, ducts, cables and conduits that spanned the room.

Craig Patterson, the lab supervisor for that section, ushered the group into one of the bays and gestured at a workbench on which lay a squat metal cylinder, about a foot high and three feet or more across, surrounded by an intricate arrangement of brackets, webs and flanges, all integral with the main body. The whole assembly looked heavy and solid and had evidently been removed from a mounting in some larger piece of equipment; there were several ports and connections that suggested inlet and outlet points, possibly electrical.

"Here's something that's had us baffled," Patterson said. "We've brought a few of these up so far--all identical. There are hundreds more down there, all over the ship. They're mounted under the floors at intervals everywhere you go. Any ideas?"

Rogdar Jassilane stepped forward and stooped to study the object briefly.

"It resembles a modified G-pack," Shilohin commented from the doorway where she was standing next to Hunt. The Ganymeans were able to converse via ZORAC, still at Main, seven hundred miles away. Jassilane ran a finger along the casing of the object, examined some of the markings still visible in places, and then straightened up, apparently having seen all he needed.

"That's what it is, all right," he announced. "It seems to have a few extras to the ones I'm used to, but the basic design's the same."

"What's a G-pack?" asked Art Stelmer, one of Patterson's engineers.

"An element in a distributed node field," Jassilane told him.

"Great," Stelmer replied with a shrug, still mystified.

Shilohin went on to explain. "I'm afraid it's to do with a branch of physics that hasn't been discovered by your race yet. In your space vessels, such as Jupiter Five , you simulate gravity by arranging for most portions of the structure to rotate, don't you?" Hunt suddenly remembered the inexplicable sensation of weight that he had felt on entering the Shapieron. The implication of what Shilobin had just said became clear.

"You don't simulate it," he guessed. "You manufacture it."

"Quite," she confirmed. "Devices like that were standard fittings in all Ganymean ships."

The Earthmen present were not really surprised since they had suspected for some time that the Ganymean civilization had mastered technologies that were totally unknown to them. All the same they were intrigued.

"We've been wondering about that," Patterson said, turning to face Shilohin. "What kind of principles is it all based on? I've never heard of anything like this before." Shilohin did not answer at once but seemed to pause to collect her thoughts.

"I'm not really sure where to begin," she replied at last. "It would take rather a long time to explain meaningfully. . . ."

"Hey, there's a booster collar from a transfer tube," one of the other Ganymeans broke in. He was staring over the partition into the adjoining bay and pointing to another, larger piece of Ganymean machinery that was lying there partially dismantled.

"Yes, I believe you're right," Jassilane agreed, following his companion's gaze.