Captain Desai sat in the bridge’s imposing command chair and watched the curving bulk of planet Gamma slide across the main display screen. In the star-speckled sky, Beta was a bloodred crescent, safely distant and moving farther away.
“Orbit established, sir,” said his navigator, a slightly plump Jamaican woman, her skin nearly as dark as Desai’s own.
The parameters of their orbit sprang up on the screen, overlaying the view of Gamma.
“Circularize orbit,” Desai commanded.
“Circularizing.”
Desai glanced around the bridge. Six men and women were seated at their consoles, tapping out commands or staring at data on their screens. Busywork, he knew. The ship was actually controlled by the master computer; the humans on the bridge were redundant, a sop to the deep-seated human fear of being replaced by machine intelligence.
Desai shook his head tolerantly. We’re here to make contact with alien intelligences, yet we’re afraid of our own machines.
With an inner smile he remembered that the scientific staff had given the master computer a human avatar for them to interact with, and the crew had even given it a human name, of sorts: Emcee.
The minibursts of thrust that adjusted their orbit around Gamma were barely noticeable. After several minutes the navigator announced, “Orbit circularized, sir.”
Desai saw the parameter numbers on the central screen.
“Good,” he said as he got up from the chair. “Take the conn. I’m going to see Professor Kosoff.”
Kosoff’s office was only a few meters down the passageway from the bridge, but it was like stepping into a different world. The science staff wore no uniforms, and they seemed to have no real discipline, just a gaggle of youngish men and women strolling leisurely along the passageway, chatting with one another casually. Desai wondered how Kosoff got any real work out of them.
Kosoff’s office door opened as soon as Desai presented himself before the security camera. The professor was at his desk, as usual, conversing with the master computer’s avatar. He looked up and waved Desai to one of the chairs in front of his desk.
Emcee’s image in the holo display blinked out as Desai dropped into one of the handsomely comfortable chairs.
“We’re in orbit around Gamma,” the captain reported.
With an unsmiling nod, Kosoff said merely, “Good.”
“I presume you’ll want to send a team to the ground as soon as possible.”
Kosoff heaved a weary sigh. “Yes. Once I’ve checked out conditions on the ground with MacDaniels.”
* * *
It was late afternoon. Mithra’s glaring red orb was sliding toward the distant mountain ridge as Brad sat with Mnnx in the top floor of the longhouse.
“Why did you wear your disguise?” Mnnx asked. He was seated at the end of a long table with Brad at his right. It reminded Brad of Kosoff’s conference table up in the starship, but he and Mnnx were the only two people in the big, open room.
“My people thought it would be easier for you to accept me if I looked as much like you as possible,” Brad answered.
For several heartbeats Mnnx remained silent. Then, “Are you one of the Sky Masters, Brrd?”
Surprised, Brad replied, “No. My people come from far away—”
“They live in the sky?”
Careful, Brad warned himself. He’s frightened of these Sky Masters, whatever they are.
Slowly, Brad explained, “My people live on a world that is very much like yours. They can travel from their own world to yours, through the sky. But the sky is not their true home.”
Mnnx sat in silence, trying to digest what Brad was telling him. The ropy tentacles of his hands kept uncoiling and then clenching again. His equivalent of tapping his fingernails, Brad thought.
“The Sky Masters are very powerful,” Mnnx said at last. “We have disobeyed them. We should have let the monsters kill us, so that the new Folk will have this village for themselves when they rise out of the ground.”
“You’re afraid the Sky Masters will return and punish you?”
“Yes. They are very powerful, and they will be angry at our disobedience.”
“Surely they didn’t want you to die,” Brad said.
“Surely they did,” Mnnx snapped.
“But you still live. You chose life over death. That is good.” Before Mnnx could object, Brad went on, “My people will help you. Together we will build a new village for the new Folk. You will all live, and you won’t have to fear the monsters from Beta anymore. Or the Sky Masters, either.”
Mnnx said, “Once this land was covered with villages. Villages far bigger than what we have now. The Sky Masters destroyed them all. They send the monsters from Beta to kill us so that the new Folk can have villages to live in when they come out of the ground.”
“That’s no way to live,” Brad said.
“It is our way, the way that the Sky Masters have ordained for us to be. I fear that they will grow angry and return to destroy us all, destroy everything, as they did so long ago.”
With a certainty that he did not actually feel, Brad said, “No, they will not return. And if they do, my people will protect you.”
Mnnx stared at Brad. “The Sky Masters are very powerful.”
“So are we,” Brad said, hoping that Mnnx’s story was really mythology and not an actual threat.