The Ship Errant

Chapter Ten

"Move in closer to the face, Keff," Carialle instructed, as he walked slowly around the largest griffin. "I want a good look at that upper lip."

Keff did as he was told, with the Cridi in close attendance. They stayed huddled beside him as if in need of his protection. Keff found it ironic since it was their power that was keeping them safe at that moment. More ironically still, Core power was also keeping the griffins alive. The Cridi had made up their minds that the aliens must be condemned to death. Only through a lot of talking and pleading had Keff argued that one couldn't kill them while they were helplessly frozen in place. The mutterings for revenge abated somewhat. Keff was relieved. With luck, an inspection team could be dispatched quickly from a nearby station, to arrive within a few weeks. The matter needed to be investigated before the Cridi decided to take it upon themselves.

"Very interesting," Carialle said, as Keff shifted the camera eye upward. "I think that those apertures in the gumline are nostrils. Yes. On the infrared level I'm seeing warm gas expelled at regular intervals. Admirable dental sets. Whatever their species evolved eating, it fought back."

"It was nearly us," Keff said. "Docket everything and time-stamp it so we can send word home to Exploration. I don't want anyone else scooping us on the discovery." He walked up behind one being whose long tail was flung up over its back. The tip seemed to twitch, and Keff eyed it suspiciously.

"You are certain that they can't get loose?" he signed to Narrow Leg.

"Held perfectly," the old Cridi said. "Internal pulses may move, but not body."

"Can they see us?" Keff asked.

"Eighty percent probability yes."

"Very interesting," Carialle said, as Keff passed the video pickup around and under the creature's torso. "What beautiful musculature. Look at the evidence of a sophisticated circulatory system. I'm taking internal images to find out whether those organs and orifices around the backside and underside are generative or excretory in function, or a combination. If this was a Terran animal, I'd call it a hermaphrodite. All of this is an educated guess, so far. It's a pity we can't ask them."

"Maybe medical information is in the database," Keff said. "It's time we cracked it."

Tall Eyebrow stayed with Keff. The rest of the Cridi split up to explore the dome structure. Confirming Carialle's guess, they found no access to below-ground excavations, except for heating tunnels that vented to the surface on the ridge high above the domes. The Cridi, recovered from their adventure, were enjoying being the first of their race to explore a new world in fifty years. Keff heard the triumphant chirruping of their high voices echoing in the empty stone corridors. The two councillors, Big Eyes and Big Voice, documented the building and furnishings in their admirably minute shorthand.

Under the baleful auspice of gargoyle wings and fangs, Keff sat down on the sling before the blue-glowing computer screen. He followed Carialle's instructions to disconnect the I/O port for his universal translation device, and hooked it to the computer's small processing unit.

Carialle fidgeted nervously as Keff made the connection. She checked her data security systems over and over again, looking for potential leaks. She had no wish to allow an alien bug to run rampant through her memory banks. Surely the protections in her chips were sophisticated enough to circumvent any intrusions. Just in case, she added a further layer of noise-suppression between her own memory functions and the empty bay she had prepared.

"Ready?" Keff asked.

"Ready," she said.

"You're on-line, Lady Fair." He sat back in the sling, and she saw a flash of gauntlets as he crossed his arms.

Opening the peripheral to the alien computer, Carialle activated the Tambino's hard storage. She allowed first a trickle, then, when nothing bad happened, a flood of memory to upload.

"There's a lot of garbage," Carialle commented, watching bits of data pass or fail to pass through some of her screens. Bad bytes bounced away, disintegrating into sparkle. Now and again she saw a spray of them like a meteor shower when the crystal structure of the disk-matrix was violated. "They've been experimenting with that keyboard, but they didn't know how to purge bad files or compress over bad sectors. I'm dumping them."

"Wait," Keff said. "Keep them. I might get some linguistics clues out of them."

With a sigh, Carialle rescued the data and put it in a separate memory column. "All yours, Sir Knight, and on your own head be it." She began to see graphics and maps appearing in the datastream. "I think I've located the original astrogation program." The Central Worlds Exploration Service logo, as familiar to her as her own engrams, appeared again and again at the head of files. She ran comparisons with her own memory base at half her normal hyperspeed, to make certain she was processing all of the data carefully. Graphics of star systems blinked by rapidly on her optic and neural inputs, in tandem with the screens in her main cabin and in the griffins' control room. The square script that took the place of Standard notation was unreadable, but it was impossible to confuse the starmaps for anything other than what they were.

"Do any of them mean anything to you?" Keff asked. "Is this a record of their own people's exploration? Do they overlap with CW astrogation?"

"Yes, they do overlap," Carialle said, narrating absently as she checked her internal directories. She allowed various diagrams to linger in the tanks in turn long enough for her brawn's slower consciousness to register them. "Too much. That's an actual space station, and that's a colony system, and that's an asteroid belt with a mining center… all this stuff is in Central Worlds records. I can't believe in identical exploration patterns, even identical fly-bys of every single system. That would suggest there are thousands of these junk ships flitting all over the galaxy, unnoticed. This information must have been in the database when it was stolen. Hmm. Some of the files have been accessed recently. The Griffins must use it to look for targets, where they pick up their 'merchandise.'"

"The mining lasers they used on us," Keff said grimly, nodding. "They must have forced one of the early victims to show them how the computer system works. What about their own star system-where do they live? Does anything stand out? Can you pick out the one that doesn't belong?"

"Of a hundred billion systems? I don't keep full files from Exploration-naturally not. They wouldn't fit in my database, and if they did, it wouldn't leave me room for anything else. But I do have an index. It'll just take some time."

"Look at this," Carialle said, about an hour later. Keff stood up from where he'd been doing stretching exercises on the black stone floor and clambered back into the sling. The Cridi, having exhausted the curiosities of the dome, crowded around him. They ignored the griffins.

Carialle accessed Keff's monitor and put up three columns of entries. "All of these match exploration files I possess, but they date from around ten years ago. There's nothing newer, except for a couple of files I don't have," Carialle said, highlighting the entries. "I want to see the inside of that ship. Let's cross-reference these with the navicomp onboard. I have an itch in my diodes that says one of these is the lucky number."

"Well, let's spin the wheel and find out," Keff said, rising and laying a hand on the monitor in view of her camera eye. "Cari, does this setup control life support in any way?"

Carialle sent the tiniest filament of a feeler out of the protective shell she had made for herself, and threaded it down through Keff's cable, into the alien database. Beyond the wall, the power fed through a comprehensive filter from a horribly dirty source, probably a thermodynamic-based turbine. She shuddered and backed away from it. This computer had once controlled many other units' systems. The residue of Standard language programming still resided in the CPU, showing titles such as Galley, Engineering, Medical, and Electronic Mail: personal, crew. Carialle felt anger which she quickly extinguished. Retribution for the dead humans and Cridi would come in time, but not at her hands. She let the tendril explore the only other open door that existed in the memory unit, a roughly-hewn portal bristling with bad data. It led to an open communications node and the landing beacon. She guessed by the microseconds it took to reach it that the node lay hundreds of kilometers away on the planet's surface.

"No," she said at last. "Not that I can see. It's a database and ground control, but nothing else."

"Good," Keff said. "I won't kill these people, but I don't want them telling anyone we've been here." He turned to the Cridi, and made a twisting gesture with both hands.

The Cridi responded tentatively at first. Narrow Leg used his amulet to rip the cables from the wall, precipitating a shower of sparks. Tall Eyebrow tore apart the umbilicals joining the peripherals to the main unit with a delicate pop! pop! pop! The other Cridi watched. Big Voice, still suffering from shock, put out a tentative hand. He raised the screen a couple of meters in the air, and dropped it. The screen flickered slightly. He picked it up again, and dashed it to the ground, almost under the nose of one of the Griffins. The plastic smashed into particles on the stone floor. Big Voice floated above it, looking triumphant.

"There! There is for my near death!" he exclaimed, his shrill voice rising. "That for the ships who disappeared!" His unholy exultation roused the others. They tore apart the computer components with wrenching gestures, scattering pieces all over the room. Keff, Tall Eyebrow and Narrow Leg watched with dismay and astonishment as civilized engineers and statesmen wreaked destruction with wild eyes and flailing hands.

The outburst was over as quickly as it had begun, and the Cridi stood about in their globes amid the ruins of the computer, looking ashamed of themselves.

"Reaction," Narrow Leg said at last, his hands quivering just a little. "It was bound to come. We must leave before the temptation to further revenge becomes too strong."

Keff agreed. He shepherded the Cridi out of the ruined control room, and into the corridor. He heard no sound but the lonely boom of his own footsteps and the wheeze of the air compressors as he followed the Cridi toward the arboretum. In the corridor, the remaining four aliens who had not participated in the brawl were bunched just outside the door, arrested in the act of leaping forward. Keff felt a shudder. He had been frozen by Core power himself, and felt sympathy for the beasts even if they were killers. Although their faces didn't change, he sensed their reproach-and their anger.

"Let's do this quickly," he said, turning away. "I don't like leaving them like that."

In the arboretum, Keff pushed his way through the spiky, blue foliage to the front of the dome, and looked out. The gangway was still attached to the side of the damaged ship, leaving no gap to the outer atmosphere.

"How did you get in here?" he asked Tall Eyebrow.

The globe-frog pantomimed through the side of his traveling sphere the raising and lowering of a curtain, a door, and another curtain. To demonstrate, he rolled across the glossy floor to the edge of the flexible airlock. Without touching the controls, the Cridi raised the heavy bumper and vanished underneath. Keff heard a faint peeping sound inside. The others floated or rolled after him.

"Aren't you going to raise it enough for me?" he asked through his helmet mike.

"Too thick stiff," Tall Eyebrow's voice said in Standard over Keff's helmet radio, with polite regret.

Shrugging, Keff dropped to his knees, and crawled under the lip. As soon as he was through, the bumper thudded down. Surrounded by round obstructions that caromed into his knees, Keff rose to his feet and used his suit light to find the controls. He hit the framed bar. The great door rose. The Cridi scooted through in a party, with the brawn striding along behind. Keff waited, holding his breath, until the second curtain lifted. Before them, the tube extended out toward a distant light. What illumination there was ran in faint parallel lines along the ceiling. Keff listened, heard nothing, then let himself exhale.

"It feels like I'm in a suspense drama," he told Carialle.

"Think of it as another M amp;L game," she said. "I read no live bodies in the ship. Unless they're capable of telekinesis like the Cridi, they can't trigger any traps on you. Go slow, and I'll look for peculiar chemical or heat traces. Aim the video pickup toward anything suspicious."

The Cridi abandoned any attempt to paddle their globes up the flexible walkway, and levitated a meter above the floor. Big Voice jockeyed his way into point position.

"I shall be the first to go in," he signed, with a self-important cheep over his shoulder at Keff.

"All right," Keff said, with Carialle's reassurance in mind. He caught Big Voice's eye, and signed. "You're an observant man, er, frog. You look out for danger."

The pompous councillor's eyes widened, and he shot back to the group.

"Danger is for humans to detect," he said emphatically. Keff bowed, concealing the grin that poked out both sides of his mouth.

The tube swayed with every step Keff took. The jerking movement made him cough, and he remembered how it felt to take that deep breath of alien atmosphere. Nervously, he checked the right side of his helmet seal every so often to make certain it remained closed.

A clear panel protected the same kind of two-bar control on the spaceship's side. As Keff raised his hand to it, the panel slid away. He punched the top button and waited. Obediently, the hatch slid upward, revealing a plain, square airlock. Keff gasped in recognition.

"This ship is definitely salvage," he said. "I know where the model came from. It's human-made, and half a century old." He felt along the wall with a gloved hand, looking for the small screwplate that should have been just inside the hatchway, but his fingertips found only a couple of small holes where the rivets had been pried out.

"They must have constructed the whole ship part by part," Carialle said, critically. "The controls appear to be retrofitted, but this airlock came off a much larger vessel."

"Appropriate, since they're larger beings," Keff said. Once he and the Cridi were inside, he looked around, turning his body so Carialle could see everything. The airlock closed, pressurized, and released the group into the main cabin of the ship. Keff showed the camera eye the shabby walls, the meager assortment of furniture.

"They haven't redecorated recently," Carialle said.

"No doubt about it, though," Keff said. "They've been shopping at Central Worlds carryout. We're on to something that the CenCom will want to know all about."

The inside of the ship was spartan. Everything was intended for function, with no concession to aesthetics. The slings and benches in the main cabin were worn, and the impact webbing attached to them sported patches in many places. Wall panels, cobbled together from a dozen ships, showed cracks and crazing where the enamel wasn't simply chipped away. Everything Keff saw was old. Even the mismatched floor panels showed worn and dented surfaces. The Cridi emitted small cheeps of interest. Keff let out a low whistle.

"What a lot of junk," he said. "Where's the up-to-date machinery as we saw in the domes?"

"Status?" Carialle guessed. "This ship might be far down the pecking order and gets what's left after the seniors take their pick. Or merely lack of opportunity. Pirates can't maraud through the rich part of space without people noticing, and we'd know if anyone reported rapacious griffins."

"Ours is so much nicer," Narrow Leg signed, with pride, gesturing around at the ship. "This lacks continuity. Could not be safe."

"He's right," Carialle said. "I don't know how this thing flies without blowing up. It was leaking high-rad like the proverbial sieve while it was chasing me."

"How quiet it is in here," Keff said, glancing around. The Cridi huddled in a corner, signing to one another. No sound except the burbling and occasional mechanical crunching of machinery broke the silence. "I'd better make sure the griffins didn't leave us any armed surprises."

Two broad doors were set into the walls, one in the wall to Keff's left, leading forward, and the other directly opposite. He signed to the others to wait, and went to the aft door. It opened onto a corridor, narrow only by griffin standards. Tall Eyebrow signed a quick question at him. Keff shook his head.

"I want to take a look before I let anyone else roam around," he said. "It might be dangerous." The Cridi signalled assent, and stayed close together near the airlock.

The rear section was divided into cargo and sleeping quarters. The bunkroom-for it was clearly that-contained more of the divan pillows, plus a few small possessions enclosed in nets on hooks on the walls. Loops of webbing attached to the hull sported frayed fibers.

"Looks like the artificial gravity goes out all the time," Keff commented to Carialle. He fingered one of the bundles, identifying a scarf, some ornamental jewelery, and a soft, fuzzy object that he guessed was a child's toy, almost worn out with love.

"Homey, isn't it?" Carialle said tinnily in his ear. "You'd never guess that these were bloodthirsty pirates, who murder and rob with such efficiency. It took them only hours to strip the DSC-902." Keff shuddered and backed away. Suddenly, the small bundle seemed macabre to him.

The sanitation room bore no resemblance to the one that had been yanked from a CW cargo liner. The facilities were altered to accomodate griffin parts, and the shower had once been two units, welded together. To Keff's surprise, the chamber was spotless. Even the corners had been scrubbed out ruthlessly. He pointed to a residue filling one of the cracks in the enamel.

"Soap," Carialle said, after a moment's analysis. "Or as near as makes never-mind."

"It's all so old," Keff said. "It still strikes me a trifle pathetic."

He went through to the cargo bay. It was full of straps and mounts hanging at all angles from the bulkheads. Keff recognized the configuration. It was used for securing odd-shaped and delicate cargo. He felt naked shock when he saw that some of the artifacts bound into the shockfoam cradles were of recent CW manufacture. He recognized life support equipment, booster engine parts, even coils upon coils of communication cable. One of the containers lashed into place bore the logo of the DSC-902. Something inside him twisted into a solid knot.

"Pathetic?" Carialle said.

"You're right," Keff said, fighting words past the lump. He was angry, and surprised at the intensity of the emotion. "They're not worth my sympathy. I have work to do."

He searched through the cargo area, yanking open bulkhead cabinets, then went back to the dormitory, and poked through every bundle, every drawer and niche. At last, he tried turning over the bed pillows. His gloves slipped on the furry surface, but he seized a fold of the cloth, and wrenched upward. They were remarkably heavy, and he found himself sitting on the floor next to the third one, panting.

"Keff!" Carialle shouted in his ear. Her voice sounded alarmed. "What are you doing?" The brawn glanced up, as if suddenly aware of his surroundings.

"I'm… looking around," he said, but he knew his voice didn't sound convincing, and Carialle, from nearly sixteen years of experience, wasn't convinced.

"You're looking for something of mine, aren't you?" she asked, her voice soft. "You want to find proof positive that these are my salvagers."

"Well, yes," he admitted, feeling sheepish. He got to his feet and looked down at the sad, lumpy bedding. He kicked it with a toe.

"Sir Knight, you're my best friend and the finest protector a lady could wish for," she said firmly, "but the frogs are waiting, and it would be cruel to leave those aliens playing statue for much longer, even if they are killers. Let's finish up and get out of here."

"But what if there's something here?"

"Someone else will find it, not us," she said firmly. "My gut-level, as much as I feel anything down there, is that we've seen all there is on this ship. Remember that these might not be the same ones."

"I'd hate to think that there were two bunches of pirates roving around out there," Keff said, but he turned and went back to the main cabin.

"Coincidences have occured before," Carialle said, but now Keff wasn't convinced. "In any case, these are the foot soldiers. I want the top bird."

"What is it you want to do?" Keff asked, but he already knew. It was what he wanted as well.

"I want to find their home system," she said. "I have to know what kind of culture fosters a history of mass piracy."

"Right you are, my lady," Keff said, then paused. "You know, Diplomacy and Maxwell-Corey ordered us home. That message they sent with the ship said to relinquish the mission and return."

"Bugger that for a game of soldiers, to quote you," Carialle said at once. "They just want me back under their eye so they can prove me mad. Everything changed when the griffins attacked the DSC-902. Their orders no longer apply. I need to follow this lead up, so I can show them the truth once and for all."

"But if these aren't the ones?" Keff asked.

"Then I'll know. But I'll never find out if we go back. The IG will slap me into protective custody, another highfalutin name for mental confinement. I'll never be satisfied with a remote report. I have to know. I have to. In the meantime, we're in pursuit of piratical perpetrators." The P's popped explosively in his ear. "Are you with me?"

"Always and for ever," Keff said. Resolutely, he strode back to the main cabin. With the Cridi in tow, he went into the fore corridor that led to the bridge.

The computer system was substantially like the one in the dome. All parts were of human manufacture. Some showed hard wear, especially the input peripherals. The navicomp, an ancient model of the kind used by vacuum miners, had been augmented by several different and mutually exclusive hard-memory storage units.

"This group knows how to program," Carialle said. "I wonder why a race with the capability to get into space doesn't build its own equipment?"

"Why buy the cow when you can get the milk?" Keff sat down on the sling with Cridi hovering on both sides. "Ready?" he asked Carialle.

"Ready."

He hooked into the information transfer port, and waited anxiously, with one hand on either side of the small screen, staring into its depths, while Carialle sifted the contents of the hard-storage. He could only sense fleeting impressions of individual star system maps as she read the memory and copied it into protected database.

"We have a match." Her voice sounded triumphant. "Three star systems, put in relatively recently."

"What are they?" Keff said, as the graphics appeared in the 2-D display.

"No can tell, Sir Knight. They're in an alien typography. The keyboard must have been altered to create their symbols. There are sixty-eight. Your first clue to their language. Enjoy."

Keff groaned. "Do you mean this is a dead end?"

"Not at all." There was a long pause, and the stars spun by again, accompanied by colored screens full of square letters. "The flight recorder shows that two of them have been visited more than once. And you'll never guess where one of them is!"

"I give up."

"Right next door. The binary mate, PLE-329-JK6-straight across the lowermost boundary of P-sector. I followed the visual log entries, and I could identify half of the visuals from my personal memory."

"That's incredible!" Keff exclaimed, then paused. "No, that's logical. Why else would they go to so much trouble to prevent a lot of traffic in this part of the galaxy?"

"My thinking exactly," Carialle said. "So that's where we go. We try it first, and if it's wrong, we go on to the next one. One of these has to be home base."

"Right. We try them one by one," Keff said.

Tall Eyebrow and Narrow Leg had been watching Keff curiously, hearing half the conversation. Keff looked at them guiltily. He'd forgotten that he was not alone, and his companions were intelligent. And motivated.

"Where to go next? This map?" the Cridi captain asked, pointing at the screen with a long finger.

"You should all go home now," Keff said. "I thank you for your help and support, but I can't ask you to do any more."

"But we would do much more," Narrow Leg signed, his old eyes wise in the wrinkled, green face. "You have done much for us, opening the way. Together, we defeated. You seek a voyage to unknown, to find truth. We wish also. We go with you."

"But your own people need you for defense," Keff said. "It's one thing to have you accompany us in your own system, and quite another to subject you to unknown danger. Your ship is not prepared for a long space voyage. You… with respect, you lack training."

"Give us training, then," Narrow Leg said. "We need also to find this truth. Many lives were lost-ships, years, lost also. I want explanations. If you say they are not to be found here, then we go to where they are."

"I will train them," Tall Eyebrow said, tapping himself on the chest. "To survive-I know this."

"Ship is ready interstellar travel," Narrow Leg said, with a throwaway gesture. "All supplies were loaded on board at departure. As for defense, half my crew are assembling two more ships from old ones and new parts. Cridi will be defended in atmosphere and out of atmosphere."

Keff shook his head at the old male's expansive signs.

"Captain, it'll take a long time to reach our destination, and we may not even find what we're looking for at this first stop. It could, no, it will be dangerous. I can't let you… er, take such important conclave councillors as Big Voice."

Narrow Leg didn't miss the subtlety. He rolled a beady black eye at Keff. "That fat one will be all right. There is no time to waste. We must not divert back to Cridi. You must be after the villains track to source."

"We come, too," Tall Eyebrow said, sweeping his hands to include his two companions and Big Eyes.

"Yes," Big Eyes agreed, with a brilliant glance at him. "We follow Tall Eyebrow. Experienced twice in space."

"Cari? We have to pursue this to the end, but they don't."

"I'm torn," Carialle said. "We could use the backup. It won't come from CW for ages, even providing they know where we are going, which they do not, and we're not armed. The Cridi want to be our allies. On the other hand, I don't like it that they're entirely without experience. Particularly, I do not like flying interplanetary distances with a possibly explosive emotional problem."

"Big Voice?" Keff asked sublingually, without moving his lips.

"He's the only one who's manifested openly so far. Who knows if any of the others will destabilize during a long trip."

Tall Eyebrow had not missed Keff's eye passing from Cridi to Cridi. "I vouch for each," he said in Standard. "They will not fail."

"I think you'd better ask them," Keff said, both in Standard and sign. Tall Eyebrow looked a question at Narrow Leg, who raised his thin shoulders eloquently and let them drop. Big Eyes made a tentative sign, then glanced at Keff. He heard a faint peep as one of the engineers spoke through the amulet link.

"Privacy," Carialle said.

"Right you are," Keff said. He turned his back on them and studied the navigation tank. After a brief conference, punctuated by shrill exclamations and much rolling about the deck, Keff felt a tap against his leg. He looked down at Tall Eyebrow.

"It is decided. We will come with you." He looked at the other seven Cridi. "We are all willing to go. The crew also." Big Voice, at the front of the group nodded vigorously, and favored Keff with a humanlike smile.

"I wish to come. Otherwise this one," he pointed to Narrow Leg, "blames me for spoiling virgin ship flight."

"You will be acclaimed hero, once home," Big Eyes squeaked, with mischief in her eyes. Big Voice relaxed back in his globe, a happy expression on his face. "All will recognize…"

"No," Tall Eyebrow said, stopping her with a downward stroke of his hand. He turned to Keff. "Not for that reason. He will go because he recognizes his fear and uncertainty, as we all do. No one goes just to prevent us from turning back."

"I am selfish," Big Eyes said, her exuberance dimmed slightly by shame. She covered her eyes with her hands, then peeped coyly between her fingers at Keff. She was so cute he couldn't help but smile.

"I go," Big Voice insisted. "Who else will see you do right? Also, I must meet the leaders of"-here he hooked his long thumbs together and spread his hands in imitation of wings-"griffins." I wish to know why they hate us. I must ask. We will… negotiate." He paused before the last sign and glanced at Narrow Leg as if defying him to laugh. "You must teach us what we do not know." Keff smiled down at him. At last he understood why the plump amphibioid was one of the eight most important frogs on Cridi.

"Thank you," he said. "It'll be good to have you along."

"And we will teach you the joys of Myths and Legends," Tall Eyebrow squeaked happily.

As soon as Keff had disconnected from the ship computer's I/O port, the Cridi destroyed the unit with the same thoroughness that they had the one in the dome. Keff examined the rest of the control board and indicated the communication set and guidance system. Tall Eyebrow delicately disassembled those, taking care to leave life support intact. The lights dimmed briefly, but came up again with a steady glow. At a nod from Narrow Leg, the ship's engineer and two of the crew went aft ahead of the rest of the group. Keff heard clashing and breaking sounds. When the three Cridi rejoined the others in the ship's main cabin, they bore between them a Core unit. It was old, and looked to be in bad shape.

"I'd forgotten about that," Keff said. Narrow Leg looked grim.

"We, never," the commander said. "And this ship will not rise again. We have destroyed the engine. Let us leave now."

Free to use Core power, the Cridi swept their globes and Keff high over the dusty landscape, back toward the small valley where the ships lay hidden. Unwilling to look straight down, Keff turned his gaze back over his shoulder toward the dome, watching it until it vanished among the battered ridges. He signed a question to Narrow Leg.

"What about the griffins?"

"We can hold them all as long as need," the old Cridi replied.

"Good. Release them when we leave orbit," Keff said. "I think we're safe, but I want to make sure."

Narrow Leg sketched a quick OK with his long fingers.

"I want you to hear this, Keff," Carialle said. "I'm shipping this off to the CenCom, and it's the last word they're going to hear from us until we find 'Griffin Central.' "

"You sound so serious, Lady Fair," Keff said. He smiled at the frogs who glanced over when they noticed the movement of his head.

"Never more in my life, but this is plain mutiny. I won't send it unless you give me your all-clear. I want to live to report to the Inspector General. If there's the least chance, I will show him who was crawling over my skin twenty years ago, and that he's been harassing me for nothing, but I refuse to endanger you. All I need is a single piece of my first ship for proof or an eyewitness, and if it's anywhere, it's in one of those three systems. Recording:

" 'This is the CK-963,' " her voice said, sharp and metallic in intonation in his ear. " 'We wish to confirm absolutely that the DSC-902 was the victim of a fatal attack by alien forces. Three ships, carrying stolen Cridi artifacts and CW mining lasers, ambushed the DSC-902 while on its way into this system for a purely peaceful mission. All the crew are dead. Ten of the perpetrators have been marooned on the fifth planet from the Cridi sun. Video accompanying this message will show that this is a life-form with which Central Worlds is unfamiliar. We are following information received, to what we believe to be the aliens' homeworld at once. Coordinates for three potential systems are in the visual portion of this message. We will transmit again with further information when we have reached our final destination. Carialle out.' What do you think?"

"Send it, lady," Keff said, firmly. "I'll be aboard in five minutes."