* * * *
The math was easy enough, if not quite exact. There were a dozen Momson Cloaks per canister; each of the two installed canisters had eleven left. There were two replacement canisters, and a backup. The emergency kit built into each of the conning seats held a pair of individual Cloaks, as well. Out of an original eight eights to start there were now five dozen and two to go.
Math is a relentless discipline: It took Shadia down the rest of the path almost automatically. Each Cloak was designed to last an average sized Terran just over 24 hours—Momson Cloaks were, after all, standard issue devices on cruise ships plying the crowded space of the Terran home system—but they were conservatively rated at 30 hours by the Scouts.
Perhaps 40 standard days then, Shadia thought, if usage was equal and none of the units bad, if…
She saw the flutter of a hand at the edge of her vision as Clonak signaled for attention; he leaned forward and they touched shoulders as he spoke:
“Not as bad as all that, Shadia—we’ve got some ship stores too, and the spacesuits themselves, if need be, and there might be a way to…” She glanced at him sharply and he pointed toward her right hand.
“I’m not a wizard, child. You were counting out loud.”
Shadia rolled her eyes. It was true. She’d been waiting for the battery powered gyroscope in the auxiliary star-field scope to stabilize with half her mind and with the other half she’d been doing math on her hand.
She bowed carefully amid a sea-noise of crinkling. “Thank you for your notice,” she said formally, while her free hand chuckled out the sign for “Why me?”
His reply in finger-talk, also with the underlying ripple of a chuckle, was simply “Breath’s duty.” He pulled away, a rough-trimmed wire conduit clutched carefully through the transparent Momson Cloak, and floated toward the open overhead panel. Shadia likewise turned back to her task in progress.
The ship’s tiny forward viewports were automatically sealed by Jump run-up; they were blind unless they could get power back to those motors or use the auxiliary scope to see straight away from the ship.
And now the star-field scope was stable enough to run: Despite Clonak’s protestations, he’d managed to perform wizard’s work on the back-up electrical system and the device was ready to operate. It was not what one might hope to be using to determine one’s position after an interrupted Jump-run, but she’d used less in training.
As she bent to the scope she sighed a breath—and then another. Breath’s Duty, indeed. Every child on Liad was made by stern Delm or fond grandfather to memorize the passage, which had come virtually unchanged through countless revisions of the Code. Unbidden, portions came to her now, recalled in the awkward rhythms of childish singsong.
“Breath’s duty is to breathe for the clan as the clan allows, Breath’s duty is to breathe the body whole, Breath’s duty is to plan for the clan’s increase, Breath’s duty is to keep the Balance told, Breath’s duty is to…”
Carefully, she adjusted the star-field scope. To be useful, she needed to recognize any of the several dozen common Guides—her usual choice was the brilliant blue-white Quarter main giganova—or find a star within disc-view. Disc-view, of course, was optimum. With the auxiliary scope even a basic scan could take a day.
“Breath’s duty is to keep the Balance told,” she muttered, and noted the gyroscope’s base setting. There were a lot of degrees of space to cover, and time moved on.
* * * *
It was L’il Orbit and not Ride the Luck that docked at Delgado’s smallest general-flight orbiting docks; and Professor Jen Sar Kiladi it was who made a series of transfers to and from accounts long held in reserve. The shuttle trip to the larger commercial center, as well as the various library connections and downloads, were made by a student invented some years before by the professor; and the tools purchased at the local pawn establishment were paid for, in cash, by a man with a brash Aus-Terran accent and super-thin gloves.
* * * *
“I’m here to fix your nerligig,” the little man told the morning guy behind the bar.
“Ist broke?” the bartender wondered. The device sat in its place, motionless—but it was always motionless at this time of the day, local ordinance requiring the Solemn Six Hours of Dawn to match that of the spiritual city Querna on the planet below.
“Repair order!” said the man, vaguely Aus, waving a flimsy in the air and lugging his kit with him. “I’m good, I’m expensive, and I’m on my night differential.”
He looked like one of those semi-retired types: just the kind of guy who’d know how to keep an antique nerligig running.
The bartender shrugged, waved the man and his tools toward the ailing equipment, and poured a legal drink into one glass and its twin into another then gave them both to the customer at the end of the bar.
“Hey, asked for one drink—right?”
“Solemn Six, bud! Can’t sell youse that much in one glass this time of the day…”
The repairman shook his head, set up his tools, adroitly removed the wachmalog and the bornduggle from the nerligig, and waited patiently for the boss.
* * * *
The boss was a heavyset Terran, and he traveled today with three guards. He came in looking tired and his guards swept by, checking out the patrons, glancing at the bartender, reconnoitering the restrooms…
It was the boss who saw the nerligig guy, professionally polishing one of the inner gimbag joints.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded.
The guy glanced at him out of serious dark eyes. “Time to do scheduled maintenance.”
The boss grimaced, but gave the correct reply.
“I don’t need nothing fancy today.”
“Dollar’s greener when you do,” said the man, polishing away.
“At’s awful old.”
The repairman looked up, eyes steady—
“I only come out at night, you know.”
The boss looked at the bartender, sighed, and watched his guards stand importantly around the bar for a moment.
“You cost me some help today,” he said finally, turning back to the nerligig guy.
The man shrugged.
“Good help is hard to find. Better you know before there’s a life in it.”
The boss sighed again, and waved the repair guy toward his office.
“C’mon back.”
* * * *
The office was sparely appointed; a working place and not a showplace. Daav took a supple leather chair for himself, nodding at its agreeability.
The boss sat in his own chair, rubbed his face with his left hand and gestured at his visitor with his right.
“What’s your pleasure?”
Daav opened his hands slightly with a half-shrug.
“Information. About that message…” The message that shouted the name of Val Con yos’Phelium to all with ears to hear, near-space and far. The message that had shaken him out of his professorial Balancing and brought him into the office of a Juntavas, seeking news.
The boss pinched the bridge of his nose and nodded.
“Yeah, I figure every quiet hand in the universe will want to know about that. I think it’s