“My parents don’t believe in evolution,” Chybee said.
“Ridiculous!” Wam exclaimed. “How can anybody not?”
“According to them, intelligence came into existence everywhere at the same tune as the whole universe. On every world but ours, mind-power controls matter directly. That’s how Swiftyouth and Sunbride hurled the Greatest Meteorite at us. Our world alone is imperfect. They even try to make out that other planets’ satellites don’t sparkle or show phases, but are always at the full.”
Wam threw up her claws in despair. “Then they are insane! Surely even making a model, with a clump of luminants in the middle to represent the sun, would suffice to—”
“Oh, I tried it once!” Chybee interrupted bitterly. “I was punished by being forbidden to set pad outside our home for a whole moonlong!”
“What were you supposed to learn from that?”
“I suppose: not to contradict my budder…” Chybee gathered her forces with an effort. “Please go on, Professor Ugant. I’m most interested.”
With a doubtful glance at her, as though suspecting sarcasm, Ugant complied.
“What, though, you might well say, does our ability to fly through the air have to do with flying into vacant space? After all, we know that even the largest and lightest floaters we can construct, with the most powerful bellowers we can breed to drive them, can never exceed a certain altitude. So we must resort to something totally new. And there it is.”
Again following her gesture, Ugant saw a long straight row of unfamiliar trees, boughs carefully warped so as to create a continuous series of lings from which hung worn but shiny metal plates and scores of nervograp tendrils.
“Ah!” Wam said. “I’ve seen pictures of that. Isn’t it where you test your drivers?”
“Correct. And the storage bladders beyond are the ones we had to devise specially to contain their fuel. What can you show to match them?”
Wam shrugged. “As yet, we’ve concentrated less on this aspect of the task than on what we regard as all-important: eventual survival of the folk in space.”
“But what’s the good of solving that problem,” Ugant snapped, “if you don’t possess a means to send them there?”
“With you working on one half of the job, and me on the other…” Wam countered disprongingly, and Ugant had to smile as they moved on towards the curiously distorted trees. Hereabouts there was a stench of burning, not like ordinary fire, but as though something Chybee had never encountered had given off heat worse than focused sunlight. Under the warped trees there was no mosh such as had cushioned their pads since leaving the scudder; indeed, the very texture of the soil changed, becoming hard—becoming crisp.
“You’re in luck,” Ugant said suddenly, gazing along the tree-line to its further end and pointing out a signal made by someone waving a cluster of leaves. “There’s a test due very shortly. Come on, and I’ll introduce you to Hyge, our technical director.”
Excitedly Chybee hastened after her companions. They led her past a house laced about with nervograps, which challenged them in a far harsher tone than Ugant’s home, but the professor calmed it with a single word. Some distance beyond, a score of young people were at work under the direction of a tall woman who proved to be Hyge herself, putting finishing touches to a gleaming cylinder in a branch-sprung cradle. It contained more mass of metal than Chybee had ever seen; she touched it timidly to convince herself that it was real.
In a few brief words Ugant summed up the purpose of their visit, and Hyge dipped respectfully to Wam.
“This is an honor, Professor! I’ve followed your research for years. Ugant and I don’t always see eye to eye, but we do share a great admiration for your pioneering experiments in spatial life-support. How are you getting on with your attempt to create a vacuum?”
“Fine!” was Wam’s prompt answer. “But unless and until we resolve our other differences, I don’t foresee that we shall work together. Suppose you continue with your test? It may impress me so much that … Well, you never know.”
Smiling, Hyge called her assistants back to the house, while Ugant whispered explanations to Chybee.