<Tiny one, entry might not be advisable—>

“Aw, stuff it. You got us out here. Let’s do the job.”

Toby thumbed his jets on for just an instant, enough to send him directly through the cut.

The beast was complicated. Toby kicked off one of the orange lattice struts of the thing’s skeleton. He pushed aside a tangle of flexible pipes and reached the red fluid sac.

<I regret I cannot follow you.>

“You’re too fat to get in here, eyes-on-sticks. Let me take a sample of this stuff.”

He jabbed a needle probe into the thick-walled sac, let his carrybottle fill with the red liquid, and slapped a patch on the hole. No need to let the thing bleed to death, just because he wanted a drop or two.

He nearly got snarled in the pipes as he made his way out. They seemed to know where he was, and Toby realized this was some slow-moving defense. Tangle up the intruder, and wait for some guard to come round him up. Something told him he didn’t want to be around that long.

Quath took the bottle and quickly reported. <Organics, soluble nutrients, traces of iron and potassium.>

“Can we use it?”

<Your metabolism may welcome it.>

“I can make a passable soup out of anything that won’t kill us.”

Little fuzz-balls were rolling along the jade skin. They were no bigger than his hand but there were lots of them, coming from all along the length of the sail-snake. Several reached the skin just below where Toby hung in free space.

“Come on—we’ve outlasted our welcome.”

Just as he said it two fuzz-balls leaped across the gap. They struck his boots and kept going, sticking lightly and rolling quickly up his skinsuit. He felt a prickly heat, right through his suit.

Quath made a furious buzz. Toby slashed at the fuzz balls with his knife. He got one off him but the other rolled onto his helmet. There it started spreading, like a pool of gray oil.

“It’s eating through!” Toby batted at the stuff, but it wouldn’t come off.

Quath grabbed his boots with one telescoping arm. Then she stuck a tube out of her side and aimed it directly at Toby’s face. A torrent of air blew over him. The gray oil rippled but clung, started to break up into drops—and suddenly was gone.

<The rule of opposites. A creature which lives in vacuum will dislike air.>

Toby gasped in relief. “I’ll have to remember that.”

<Oxygen is corrosive, though we seldom notice. It will eat steel, given time, leaving only rust.>

“I’ll have to swear off the stuff.” He wriggled away from an approaching fuzz-ball. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Quath helped him get free. <I believe considerable liquid can be extracted from this creature without endangering its metabolism.>

“Like a blood transfusion, sort of?”

<Not truly. I believe these fluids do not circulate like blood. They are long-term energy reserves.>

“It’s okay to take them?”

The team assembling in the ship was going to search for plants, or even raid mechs if there were any here—but certainly not slaughter animals. Family Bishop had a deep moral code against using animal products, too, unless the animal cooperated, like dairy cows. To damage living things was to be no better than mechs.

<This creature feeds off others. It cannot object if we do likewise to it, while allowing it to still live.>

“Ummm. So you’re a moral philosopher.”

<All are. It is a condition of living.>

They were halfway back to Argo when Cermo called over comm,—Hey! What in hell are you—

“Got some juice you should look at,” Toby said.

—You got that alien to take you out. That’s direct disobedience of an order.—

“I was hauled along for the ride, Cermo.”

Quath confirmed, <He is truth-filled.>

Quath hardly ever intervened in a human conversation. Toby was surprised and pleased.

Cermo sounded annoyed.—I know something else he’s full of. Anyway, get back here. We’ve got to find food supplies and then move on.—

“How come? I’d like to explore this—”

—Those big things orbiting closer to the Center? The Bridge just got a spectro-reading. They told me the nearest one’s not mech-made at all, like we thought.—

“What is it, then?”

—Human-made. An ancient Chandelier.—

THREE

The Rule of Number

Besen came by Toby’s bunk to see if he wanted to go up to the viewing room. She was sweaty from her work—hand-cultivating the vegetable fields in the single lush growing dome they had left. Her overalls were grungy, light brown wisps of hair were escaping from a tight bun, and she beamed at him, still flush with energy to burn.

“Sorry, can’t,” Toby said mournfully. He was propped up on his bunk, pushing a stylus around a writing slate, without much real progress.

“Oh, come on! That’ll wait.”

“Cermo’s got me under orders. I’ve got to get through five lessons before I can go off-ship again.”

“That’s cruel.” She smiled sympathetically. Everybody wanted to get outside, after years of ship living, but Toby more so.

“Well, I am kinda behind.”

Besen tossed her head with pretty annoyance. “Let’s see what you’re—oh, numbers. Yuk!”

“They have their charms—but not right now.”

“I just don’t see the point of them, really. I mean, machines think in numbers—so why should we bother?”

“Look, somebody who doesn’t use numbers has no advantage over somebody who can’t use them.”

“But mechs think that way.” Plainly Besen felt that associating anything with mechs ruled it out.

“And so does Argo—without its computers, we’d be dead. Mechs are evil, sure. Because of what they do, not what they use. Numbers are like words—ways of saying things about the world.”

“Well, they don’t speak to me.”

“And I shouldn’t be speaking to you either. I’ve got to plow through these lessons or else I won’t get to go look at the Chandelier at all.” Toby sighed and stretched, his feet bumping into the ceramic bulkhead. He was lanky and this bunk was getting too short for him. He would have to hunt up a bigger one elsewhere in the dorm rooms that all unmarried Family used.

“Cermo said that? He’s getting tough.”

“I think it’s my dad jerking the strings again.”

Besen snorted in frustration. “Our beloved Cap’n. Why can’t he leave his own son alone?”

“I don’t know,” Toby said, though he had a pretty good idea. It wasn’t anything he wanted to talk over, though, not even with Besen.

She gazed pensively into the distance. “Y’know, after Shibo died, he seemed to recover. But lately, he’s been spending more time by himself, barking orders, keeping everybody in the dark about what he’s thinking. And he treats you funny.” Her eyes slid over to him, inviting a reply.

Toby edged away from specifics with, “Maybe fathers and sons always have trouble.”

“Your father is something else.” Besen’s voice dripped with implications.

“Meaning?”

“He’s rough on everybody. Downright nasty.”

Toby gave her a grim smile. “Maybe he doesn’t want anybody to feel left out.”

“A humorist.” Besen had lost some of her buoyancy. “But I mean it, really. Cap’n Killeen is driving us all hard, and people don’t like it. Except maybe the Cards—they had tough leaders so long—crazy ones even!—they like ’em.”

“Ummm. We’ve gotten soft, living in this comfy ship.”

“Comfy? I spent today on my knees, hand-tending every tomato plant, coaxing them to stay alive.”