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concealed under the exterior appearance of unpromising asteroids in
inaccessible orbits, or between stars, or among clusters of other objects in
dust swarms and gas clouds. "Twice," he ordered without looking at her,
"activate a command ship. We will rendezvous with it at the sailship point."
She was upset, he observed. He was sorry but not surprised-come down to that,
he was upset himself! He returned to the command seat and lowered the bones of
his pelvis onto the projecting Y-flanges, his life-support pouch fitting
neatly into the angle they enclosed.
And became aware that his communications officer was standing over him, face
working worriedly. "Yes, Shoe? What is it?"
Shoe's biceps flexed deferentially. "The-" he stammered. "They- The Assassins-
"
Captain felt an electric shock of fear. "The Assassins?"
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"I think there is a danger that they will be disturbed," said Shoe dismally.
"The aboriginals are conversing by zero-speed radio."
"Conversing? You mean transmitting messages? Who are you talking about-massed
minds!" Captain shouted, leaping out of the seat again. "You mean the
aboriginals are sending messages at galactic distances?"
Shoe hung his head. "I am afraid so, Captain. Of course, I do not yet know
what they are saying-but there is a great volume of communication."
Captain shook his wrists feebly to signal that he wanted to hear no more.
Sending messages! Across the Galaxy! Where anyone might hear!
-where, especially, the certain parties the Heechee hoped would not be
disturbed at all might well hear. And react to. "Establish translation
matrices with the minds," he ordered, and dismally returned to his seat.
The mission was jinxed. Captain no longer had hopes of an idle pleasure
cruise, or even of the satisfaction of a minor task well accomplished. The big
question in his mind was whether he could get through the next few days.
Still, soon they would transship into the shark-shaped command vessel, fastest
of the Heechee fleet, filled with technology. Then his options would increase.
Not only was it larger and faster; it carried a number of devices not present
on his little penetrator-ship. A TPT. Hole cutters like the ones his ancestors
had used to scoop out the Gateway asteroid and the warrens under the surface
of Venus. A device to reach into black holes to see what could be plucked out-
he shuddered. Please the massed minds of the ancestors, that one they would
not have to use! But he would have it. And he would have a thousand other
useful bits of equipment- Assuming, that was, that the ship was still
functioning and would meet them at the rendezvous.
The artifacts the Heechee had left behind were powerful, strong, and long-
lasting. Bar accidents, they were built to last for at least ten million
years.
But you could not bar all accidents. A nearby supernova, a malfunctioning
part, even a chance collision with some other object-you could harden the
artifacts against almost all hazards, but in infinite astronomical time
"almost all" is little better than "none."
And if the command ship happened to have failed? And if there were no other
that Twice could locate and bring to the rendezvous?
The Heechee learned fairly early in their technological phase to store the
intelligences of dead or dying Heechee in inorganic systems. That was how the
Dead Men came to be stored to provide company for the boy Wan, and it was an
application of that technology that produced Robin's Here After company. For
the Heechee (if I may venture a possibly not unbiased opinion) it may have
been a mistake. Since they were able to use the dead minds of Heechee
ancestors to store and process data, they were not very good at true
artificial-intelligence systems, capable of far greater power and flexibility.
Like-welt-like me.
Captain allowed himself to let the depression sink into his mind. There were
too many ifs. And the consequences of each of them too unpleasant to face.
It was not unusual for Captain, or any other Heechee, to be depressed. They
had earned it fairly.
When Napoleon's Grand Army crawled back from Moscow their enemies were small
harassing cavalry bands, the Russian winter-and despair.
When Hitler's Wehrmacht repeated the same trek thirteen decades later, the
main threats were the Soviet tanks and artillery, the Russian winter-and,
again, despair. They retreated in better order and with more destruction to
their foes. But not with more despair, or less.
Every retreat is a kind of funeral cortege, and the thing that has died is
confidence. The Heechee had confidently expected to win a galaxy. When they
found they must lose, and began their immense, star-spanning retreat to the
core, the magnitude of their defeat was huger than any that humans had ever
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