This secondary harbor was not really part of the tusk-leg race's terrane. The inside of the arc was far different from what they had seen on the Skroderiders' first trip. There were no exterior views. Cramped passages wound between irregular walls pocked with dark holes. Insects flew everywhere, often covering parts of the camera balls. To Pham, the place looked filthy. There was no evidence of the terrane's owners — unless they were the pallid worms that sometimes stuck a featureless head(?) up from a burrow hole. Over his voice link, Blueshell opined that these were very ancient tenants of the RIP system. After a million years, and a hundred transcendent emigrations, the residue might still be sentient, but stranger than anything evolved in the Slow Zone. Such a people would be protected from physical extinction by ancient automation, but they would also be inward turning, totally cautious, absorbed in concerns that were inane by any outside standard. It was the type that most often lusted after trellis work.
Pham tried to keep an eye on everything. The Riders had to travel almost four kilometers from the harbor lock to reach the place where the trellises would be "validated". Pham counted two exterior locks along the way, and nothing that looked especially threatening — but then how would he know what "threatening" looked like here? He had the OOB mount an exterior watch. A large shepherd satellite floated on the outer side of the ring, but there were no other ships in this harbor. The EM and ultra-environment seemed placid, and what could be seen on the local net did not make the ship's defenses suspicious.
Pham looked up from the reports. Ravna had drifted across the deck to the outside view. The repair work was visible, though not spectacular. A pale greenish aura hung around the damaged spines. It was scarcely brighter than the glow you often see on ship hulls in low planetary orbit. She turned and said softly, "Is it really getting fixed?"
"As far as we can — I mean yes." Ship's automation was monitoring the regrowth, but they wouldn't know for sure till they tried to fly with it.
Pham was never sure why Rihndell had the Skroderiders pass through the wormheads' terrane; maybe, if the creatures were the ultimate trellis users, they wanted a look at the sellers. Or maybe it had some connection with the treachery that ultimately followed. In any case the Riders were soon out of it, and into a polyspecific concourse as crowded as any low-tech bazaar.
Pham's jaw sagged. Everywhere he looked there was a different class of sophont. Intelligent life is a rare development in the universe; in all his life in the Slow Zone, he had known three nonhuman races. But the universe is a big place, and with ultradrive it was easy to find other life. The Beyond collected the detritus of countless migrations, an accumulation that finally made civilization ubiquitous. For a moment he lost track of his surveillance programs and his general suspicions, drowned in the wonder of it. Ten species? Twelve? Individuals brushed familiarly by one another. Even Relay had not been like this. But then Harmonious Repose was a civilization lost in stagnation. These races had been part of the RIP complex for thousands of years. The ones that could interact had long since learned to do so.
And nowhere did he see butterfly wings on creatures with large, compassionate eyes.
He heard a small sound of surprise from the far side of the deck. Ravna was standing close by a window that looked out from one of Greenstalk's side cameras. "What is it, Rav?"
"Skroderiders. See?" She pointed into the mob and zoomed the view. For a moment the images towered over her. Through the passing chaos he had a glimpse of hull forms and graceful fronds. Except for cosmetic stripes and tassles, they looked very familiar indeed.
"Yeah, there's a small colony of them hereabouts." He opened the channel to Greenstalk and told her about the sighting.
"I know. We… smelled them. Sigh. I wish we had time to visit them after this. Finding friends in far places… always nice." She helped Blueshell push the trellises around a balloon acquarium. They could see Rihndell's people just ahead. Six tusk-legs sat on the wall around what might be test equipment.
Blueshell and Greenstalk pushed their ball of frothy carbon into the group. The scrimshawed one leaned close to the pile and reached out to fondle the pieces with its tiny arms. One after another the trellises were placed in the tester. Blueshell moved in close to watch, and Pham set the main windows to look through his cameras. Twenty seconds passed. Rihndell's Trisk interpreter said, "First seven test true, make an interlocked septet."
Only then did Pham realize he had been holding his breath. The next three "septets" passed, too. Another sixty seconds. He glanced at the ship's repair status. OOB considered the job done but for sign-off commit from the local net. Another few minutes and we can kiss this place goodbye!
