They were in a fairly small, bare compartment whose walls were of a translucent amber material and glowed softly. It seemed to be an antechamber to whatever lay beyond another door leading aft, from which a stronger light was emanating. Before Hunt could take in any more of the details, Lyn sailed in through the doorway and landed lightly on the spot he had just vacated. “Smoking or nonsmoking?” he asked.
“Where’s the stewardess? I need a brandy.”
Then Danchekker’s voice shouted in sudden alarm from out-•side. “What in God’s name is happening? Do something with this infernal contraption!” They looked back down. He was hanging a foot or two above the stairway, flailing his arms in exasperation after having apparently come to a halt halfway through the process of joining them. “This is ridiculous! Get me down from here!”
“You’re crowding the doorway,” the voice that had spoken before advised from somewhere around them. “How about moving on through and making more room?” They moved toward the
inner doorway, and Danchekker appeared behind somewhat huffily a few seconds later. While Heller and Packard were following, Hunt and Lyn followed Caidwell into the body of the craft.
They found themselves in a short corridor that ran twenty feet or so toward the tail before stopping at another door, which was closed. A series of partitions extending from floor to ceiling divided the space on either side into a half-dozen or so narrow cubicles facing inward from left and right. As they moved along the corridor, they found that all the cubicles were identical, each containing some kind of recliner, luxuriously upholstered in red, facing inward toward the corridor and surrounded by a metal framework supporting panel inlays of a multicolored crystalline material and a bewildering layout of delicately constructed equipment whose purpose could have been anything. There was still no sign of life.
“Welcome aboard,” the voice said. “If you’d each take a seat, we can begin.”
“Who’s doing the talking?” Caldwell demanded, looking around and overhead. “We’d appreciate the courtesy of your identifying yourself.”
“My name is VISAR,” the voice replied. “But I’m only the pilot and cabin crew. The people you’re expecting will be here in a few minutes.”
They were probably through the door at the far end, Hunt decided. It seemed odd. The voice reminded him of his first meeting with the Ganymeans, inside the Shapieron shortly after it had arrived in orbit over Ganymede. On that occasion, too, contact with the aliens had been through a voice functioning as interpreter, which turned out subsequently to belong to an entity called zoi~c
-a supercomputer complex distributed through the ship and responsible for the operation of most of its systems and functions. “VISAR,” he called out. “Are you a computer system built into this vehicle?”
“You could say that,” VISAR answered. “It’s about as near as we’re likely to get. A small extension is there. The rest is scattered all over Thurien plus a whole list of other planets and places. You’ve got a link into the net.”
“Are you saying this ship isn’t operating autonomously?” Hunt asked. “You’re interacting between here and Thurien in realtime?”
“Sure. How else could we have turned around the messages from Jupiter?”
Hunt was astounded. VISAR’S statement implied a communications network distributed across star systems and operating with negligible delays. It meant that the point-to-point transfers, at least of energy, that he had often talked about with Paul Shelling at Navcomms were not only proved in principle, but up and running. No wonder Caldwell was looking stunned; it put Navconims back in the Stone Age.
Hunt realized that Danchekker was now immediately behind him, peering curiously around, with Heller and Packard just inside the door. Where was Lyn? As if to answer his unvoiced question, her voice spoke from inside one of the cubicles. “Say, it feels great. I could stand this for a week or two, maybe.” He turned and saw that she was already lying back in one of the recliners and apparently enjoying it. He looked at Caldwell, hesitated for a moment, then moved into the adjacent cubicle, turned, and sat down, allowing his body to sink back into the redliner’s yielding contours. It felt right for human rather than Ganymean proportions, he noted with interest. Had they built the whole craft in a week specifically for the occasion? That would have been typical of Ganymeans too.