“The source wasn’t able to analyze them, but they’re clearly artificial. There were over a thousand of them on the main land mass ninety years ago, and that was on the basis of a very cursory survey from orbit.”
“Yes, this is very interesting!” said Klimovna. “Who is it who built this, please?”
The words were polite though the tone was peremptory. Adele smiled faintly; she might have done the same, so she couldn’t fault the Countess.
“The source didn’t have the faintest idea,” she said. “The dragons, the large ones at least, appear to use the structures as their lairs, but it seems unlikely that they were the builders.”
She didn’t say, “impossible.” As a scholar Adele had always been willing to discount travelers’ tales, but since fate and the RCN snatched her from the library to the surface of distant worlds, she’d seen things with her own eyes that she found hard to explain.
Clearing her throat again she continued, “I presume more vessels have landed on 4795-C than the survey ship on which the source travelled, but they’ve left no record I could access in the time available. Perhaps I’ll be able to learn more in the archives of Todos Santos, if you choose to delay there.”
The Countess looked at her husband. “Yes, perhaps we shall,” she said.
The whistle blew again. Daniel stepped back into the Princess Cecile with a smile of satisfaction while behind him the rectangular port began to whine closed.
“Ship, this is the captain,” he said as he grinned at Adele. “Prepare for liftoff!”
* * *
Daniel Leary, captain of the private yacht Princess Cecile, settled into the couch of his console. His tremble of fear was a new thing, something he’d noticed only since he’d become a commanding officer. Liftoffs had never bothered him before.
He checked the lockout disconnecting the console, then let his fingers caress the touchpad to gain its feel again. Everything was as it should be, the minuscule hum of a living machine waiting for him to order its next action. He switched it on.
Daniel grinned. He’d worked, he’d fought, very hard to rise to a position where he could fear that some freak failure of hardware or programming would flip the vessel onto her back as she started to lift off.
“Captain to Power Room,” Daniel said over the command channel. “How do things look, Mr. Pasternak? Over.”
“All green, Captain,” said the Chief Engineer from his post in the center of D Deck. “The flows on Port Four and Starboard Five are down ten percent, but the valves are brand new. They’ll wear in, and if they don’t I’ll polish them with emery. Over.”
“Ninety percent is more than adequate, Mr. Pasternak,” Daniel said. “Out.”
Being slightly down in water flow on two of the corvette’s plasma thrusters wasn’t a matter of concern. The Princess Cecile could reach orbit with 40% total power, though Daniel’d be dumping reaction mass if he ever got into that situation. The thrusters were all in the green—literally; the icons showed across the top of Daniel’s display—but it was more than a matter of courtesy that caused him to check directly with Pasternak. A good engineer had a feel for things that a computer readout couldn’t equal, and Pasternak had shown himself to be good as well as dedicated.
“Mr. Chewning,” Daniel said, his words cueing the channel to his new first lieutenant at the duplicate controls in the Battle Direction Center. “Are you ready for liftoff?”
Chewning was thirty-eight standard years old and still a midshipman. He was a heavy-set man, slow of speech and perhaps of thought as well. He’d applied for the vacancy created when Mon took a dirtside job; and Daniel had accepted him over the score of younger, sharper officers looking for adventure under Lieutenant Leary.
Chewning wasn’t flashy, but his record showed him to be utterly dependable. He’d accepted a series of thankless, demanding duties during his service with the RCN, including twice nursing home vessels too badly damaged for repair anywhere but in a major dockyard. He’d plodded through each task successfully . . . and been handed another one in return.