any computation
capacity loans we have out. Pass the word that we’re going on
overtime. Everybody, including the janitors and shredder operators.
I’ve got a feeling we’ll find a rose in this dungheap
yet.” He laughed demoniacally. “Eyes open and ears to
the ground gentlemen. Everything that comes in from now
on—and I mean
everything
—goes into the master
program for correlation. And have the programming teams start
working backward. I want the biggest and best goddamned model
outside the High Command Strategic Analysis. Let’s see if we
can’t do this all up in one big, pretty package.”
Beckhart departed his desk and unlocked his personal bar. He
took out glasses and the half gallon of genuine Old Earth Scotch he
saved for occasions of millennial significance. “A toast to
successes and victories. Hopefully ours.” He poured
doubles.
----
----
Six: 3049 AD
The Main Sequence
The five great harvestships barely moved. Their velocity
relative to the debris was a scant three kilometers per hour.
Gnatlike service ships flitted before the head and flanks of their
line, nudging any flying mountain that threatened collision.
It was almost an embarrassment, the way those swift monsters of
the spatial deeps had to crawl. Elsewhere they could have sprinted
off and left light lagging like a toddler behind an Olympic runner.
Here they could not match the pace of a lazily strolling old
man.
Those battered survivors of Payne’s Fleet had been making
the passage for a week.
The dense boulder screen gave way to a less crowded region
occupied principally by asteroidal chunks the size of small moons.
The harvestfleet accelerated. The line dispersed.
“Well, you kept asking about the Yards,” Amy told
benRabi. “We’re there.” She indicated the
viewscreen they had been watching.
“Yes, but . . . ” All Moyshe saw
was a big asteroid illuminated by
Danion’s
powerful
lights. A few smaller boulders drifted around it. Not one star was
visible in the background. All outside light was screened by the
dust of the nebula.
Danion
seemed to be stalking that big asteroid.
“But what?”
“There’s nothing here. We’re in the tail end
of nowhere. I expected a hidden planet. Maybe even Osiris.
Something First Expansion. Strange cities,
drydocks . . . ”
“Planetary docks? How could we take
Danion
into
atmosphere? Or lift her out of a gravity well? Most of your Navy
ships wouldn’t try that.”
“But you’d have to have thousands of people to work
on a ship this big. Tens of thousands. Not to mention a hell of an
industrial base, and one all-time grandfather of a
drydock.”
“The dock’s right in front of you.”
“What? Where?”
“Watch and see.”
He watched. And he saw.
A gargantuan piece of rock began separating from the asteroid.
In time it exposed a brightly lit interior vast enough to accept a
harvestship. Diminutive tugs swarmed out. Some pushed the cork.
Some hurried toward
Danion
like eager bees to a clover
patch.
BenRabi saw a glow in the remote distance. Another asteroid was
opening its stone mouth.
“We’re going inside?”
“You got it. You catch on quick, don’t
you?”
“Smart mouth.”
“They’ll lock the door behind us. Then they’ll
flood the chamber with air. The work goes faster that way. And the
dock will hide us from any snoopers who wander by.”
“Who would come poking around in a mess like this? That
would be asking to get fine-ground between those flying
millstones.”
BenRabi was less surprised by the existence of the nebula than
by the Seiners’ willingness to hazard it. Similar asteroidal shoals
existed inside several dust nebulae.
“But they come anyway. Moyshe, this’s the Three Sky
Nebula.”
“No. Not really? Yes. I guess you’re
serious.”
One of the most dramatic actions of the Ulantonid War had
occurred in the outer shoals of the Three Sky Nebula. After the
war, the repatriated human survivors had circulated stories of
having
capacity loans we have out. Pass the word that we’re going on
overtime. Everybody, including the janitors and shredder operators.
I’ve got a feeling we’ll find a rose in this dungheap
yet.” He laughed demoniacally. “Eyes open and ears to
the ground gentlemen. Everything that comes in from now
on—and I mean
everything
—goes into the master
program for correlation. And have the programming teams start
working backward. I want the biggest and best goddamned model
outside the High Command Strategic Analysis. Let’s see if we
can’t do this all up in one big, pretty package.”
Beckhart departed his desk and unlocked his personal bar. He
took out glasses and the half gallon of genuine Old Earth Scotch he
saved for occasions of millennial significance. “A toast to
successes and victories. Hopefully ours.” He poured
doubles.
----
----
Six: 3049 AD
The Main Sequence
The five great harvestships barely moved. Their velocity
relative to the debris was a scant three kilometers per hour.
Gnatlike service ships flitted before the head and flanks of their
line, nudging any flying mountain that threatened collision.
It was almost an embarrassment, the way those swift monsters of
the spatial deeps had to crawl. Elsewhere they could have sprinted
off and left light lagging like a toddler behind an Olympic runner.
Here they could not match the pace of a lazily strolling old
man.
Those battered survivors of Payne’s Fleet had been making
the passage for a week.
The dense boulder screen gave way to a less crowded region
occupied principally by asteroidal chunks the size of small moons.
The harvestfleet accelerated. The line dispersed.
“Well, you kept asking about the Yards,” Amy told
benRabi. “We’re there.” She indicated the
viewscreen they had been watching.
“Yes, but . . . ” All Moyshe saw
was a big asteroid illuminated by
Danion’s
powerful
lights. A few smaller boulders drifted around it. Not one star was
visible in the background. All outside light was screened by the
dust of the nebula.
Danion
seemed to be stalking that big asteroid.
“But what?”
“There’s nothing here. We’re in the tail end
of nowhere. I expected a hidden planet. Maybe even Osiris.
Something First Expansion. Strange cities,
drydocks . . . ”
“Planetary docks? How could we take
Danion
into
atmosphere? Or lift her out of a gravity well? Most of your Navy
ships wouldn’t try that.”
“But you’d have to have thousands of people to work
on a ship this big. Tens of thousands. Not to mention a hell of an
industrial base, and one all-time grandfather of a
drydock.”
“The dock’s right in front of you.”
“What? Where?”
“Watch and see.”
He watched. And he saw.
A gargantuan piece of rock began separating from the asteroid.
In time it exposed a brightly lit interior vast enough to accept a
harvestship. Diminutive tugs swarmed out. Some pushed the cork.
Some hurried toward
Danion
like eager bees to a clover
patch.
BenRabi saw a glow in the remote distance. Another asteroid was
opening its stone mouth.
“We’re going inside?”
“You got it. You catch on quick, don’t
you?”
“Smart mouth.”
“They’ll lock the door behind us. Then they’ll
flood the chamber with air. The work goes faster that way. And the
dock will hide us from any snoopers who wander by.”
“Who would come poking around in a mess like this? That
would be asking to get fine-ground between those flying
millstones.”
BenRabi was less surprised by the existence of the nebula than
by the Seiners’ willingness to hazard it. Similar asteroidal shoals
existed inside several dust nebulae.
“But they come anyway. Moyshe, this’s the Three Sky
Nebula.”
“No. Not really? Yes. I guess you’re
serious.”
One of the most dramatic actions of the Ulantonid War had
occurred in the outer shoals of the Three Sky Nebula. After the
war, the repatriated human survivors had circulated stories of
having
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