“In early February,” said Dr. Schein. “We went there after leaving the asteroid in the 1145591 system where—”

“Hold it,” the Navy man cut in. “Galaxy Central asserts that you were last heard from on a planet called Higby V, where you’re supposed to be conducting an excavation of some old ruins. You left Higby V without authorization and disappeared. That was in violation of your agreement with Galaxy Central, and therefore—”

Dr. Schein broke in, “We left Higby V to go to 1145591, and from there we went to Aldebaran IX, where I sent a complete TP report to Galaxy Central.”

“Not as far as anyone told me, Doctor.”

“There’s been a mistake,” Dr. Schein suggested. “A computer error — a data transposition — a dropped bit. This whole arrest order must be erroneous.”

Commander Leonidas looked troubled. Also puzzled.

Pilazinool said quietly, “Commander, precisely how did you trace us to McBurney IV?”

“I didn’t trace you anywhere. I was ordered to come here and pick you up. Presumably Galaxy Central knew you were here.”

“Galaxy Central did know,” said Pilazinool, “because Dr. Schein sent word from Aldebaran that we were coming here. At the same time, he received full authorization from Galaxy Central to make this trip. If Galaxy Central lost track of us after Higby V, as you claim it says, how could Galaxy Central possibly know we had gone to McBurney’s Star?”

Commander Leonidas had to admit the logic of that.

He fumbled through the text of his arrest order, looking for a solution to the inconsistency, and didn’t find one. Leave it to the galactic bureaucracy: the right hands know not what the left hands are doing. Or tentacles, as the case may be.

Pilazinool said, “Do you have TP personnel on this ship?”

“Yes,” said Commander Leonidas.

“I think,” said Pilazinool, “you’d do well to put through a call to someone at Galaxy Central right now and get things straightened out.”

“That might be a good idea,” the Commander agreed.

Getting anything straightened out with Galaxy Central is a slow business. Everybody important went off to the TP section, and a few frantic hours followed. What finally emerged was the realization that one officious vidj at Galaxy Central, remembering that we had promised to ship the globe there as part of the agreement letting us go on to 1145591, realized the globe hadn’t showed up. He called Higby V and found that we were gone, globe and all. If he had bothered to run a routine data-tank recap, he’d have found that we had sent word from Aldebaran that it had been necessary to take the globe with us. Instead, jumping two or three notches in the sequence of events, this particular blenking feeb had cleverly ordered a computer search of all ultraspace transit vouchers for the past six months, in order to find us, and thus turned up the fact that we had gone from 1145591 to Aldebaran and from Aldebaran to McBurney’s Star. We had Galaxy Central’s permission to do all this, but he didn’t check the correspondence tank, just the transit data. Whereupon this dreary zoob erroneously concluded that we were unlawfully running all over space on Galaxy Central’s thumb, as well as taking valuable property in defiance of an agreement, and decided to put a stop to this squandering of public stash by arresting us instantly. Hence the order to Commander Leonidas to put the yank on us at McBurney IV.

I repeat all this devious foolishness because it gives a beautiful illustration of how catastrophes can sometimes turn out pretty well. By the time Dr. Schein got finished making TP calls to Galaxy Central, you see, he had accomplished more than getting that dumb arrest order blotted. He had explained, to someone very high in the hierarchy, all about Dihn Ruuu, the Mirt Korp Ahm, and the hidden world of Mirt. And, since Commander Leonidas and his ultraspace cruiser are now conveniently in orbit around McBurney IV, it will not be necessary for us to wait weeks and weeks to arrange our transport to Mirt.

Commander Leonidas will take us there.

We leave tomorrow — for the home planet of the High Ones.

SIXTEEN

May 1, 2376 Mirt.

Now I know that I have been talking only to myself all the time I’ve been dictating these cubes. Lorie will never play them. What I have been composing over these past nine months, imagining I was writing letters to my sister on Earth, is actually a memoir of my own adventures, a diary for my own amusement.

In that case, I suppose I should complete the record by setting down the outcome of this phase of the story. The story doesn’t end here; it’s really only beginning. What is yet to come is the real research, the sorting out of the immense treasury of new knowledge that we’ve acquired. But that promises to be at once more exciting and less dramatic, if I follow what I’m trying to say. I mean, the next phase of discovery won’t unfold in such a fantastic rush of events — I hope.

The Pride of Space brought us to Mirt by early April. Dihn Ruuu, Commander Leonidas, and Nick Ludwig plotted our course together, after sighting the hidden star by infrared. Cautiously the cruiser pulled up ten light-minutes away from the dark shell that houses the High Ones. There was no telling what defensive weapons might go into action against a ship that came closer without permission.

The shell that is Mirt is the most awesome thing I have ever seen. From a distance of ten light-minutes it appears to fill half the sky, a great dark curving shield with a diameter greater than that of Earth’s whole orbit. Even while Saul had been explaining Dyson spheres to us, I hadn’t really considered in serious practical terms what it means to build a sphere big enough to contain a sun. I know now.

Dihn Ruuu, using High Ones broadcast equipment acquired on McBurney IV, put through a signal to Mirt and requested entry permission for us. The robot needed three and a half hours to get its message across. Because of our distance from the sphere, there had to be a lag of ten minutes between the time any audio signal was transmitted and the time it was received, but this alone couldn’t account for Dihn Ruuu’s seeming difficulties in persuading Mirt to let us in. The incomprehensible exchanges of alien words went on and on.

Finally Dihn Ruuu rose and told us, “It is done. They will admit us.”

I asked, “Were you having trouble communicating with them because of changes in the language?”

“The language of the Mirt Korp Ahm,” said the robot coolly, “is not susceptible to change.”

“Not ever} Not even over millions of years?”

“Not a syllable has altered since I was manufactured.”

“That’s incredible,” I said. “That a language won’t change at all in almost a billion years.”

“The Mirt Korp Ahm have never admired continuous evolution,” said Dihn Ruuu. “They seek perfection, and, when they have attained it, seek no more.”

“But how can they tell when they’ve attained it?”

“They can tell.”

“And then they stop trying to improve anything?”

“It is the difference, Tom, between your race and the one I serve. From what I have seen of you, I realize that you Earthfolk are never satisfied; by definition, you will never be satisfied. You are perpetual seekers. The Mirt Korp Ahm are capable of contentment when they reach perfection in any endeavor. You would try to improve on perfection itself.”

I saw now why the 250 million years of our archaeological record of the High Ones had registered so little change. And why they had endured across a billion years.

A supercivilization, yes. But a supercivilization of supertortoises… never sticking out their necks. Achieving greatness and pulling into their shells. Literally building a shell around their own sun.