Page 35 of Alien Haven

Wilkes’ next try would have to be along less suspicious lines. He mused over various scenarios, letting his mind rangefrom the conventional to the ridiculous. He’d found even dumb notions sometimes held a nugget of promise he could take advantage of.

“Might have to take chances…but nothing excessively risky. Not unless the risk can be shoved onto someone else loyal enough to the cause to willingly accept it. Or loyal and stupid enough.”

He grinned. He knew a fellow who fit the bill where such an accomplice was concerned. Once more, speaking the thoughts running through his head had sorted their confused clattering.

* * * *

Charity aimed the battered antique telescope she’d set up in the Amgar backyard. “There, out beyond the Bi’is territory’s sun…whatwasthe Bi’is territory,” she amended. “It isn’t visible from here or from any telescope even at the edge of known space, but my calculations say there’s a hypergiant sun about seventeen hundred light years from Galactic Council space.”

“Hypergiant?” Mitag asked.

“A star larger than a supergiant. It’s huge, in other words.” She gazed at the blue twinkle of Bi’is itself, a planet now devoid of the sentients who’d called it home for eons. The Bi’isils had been real bastards, but she felt sorry for their extinction just the same. No species deserved to be wiped out, with the possible exception of the entity which had ended them: the All, from which the Darks came.

“How would it compare to Kalquor’s sun?” Detodev asked.

“Close to two thousand times the radius. Visualize six and a halfbillionof your suns fitting into it.”

The Nobek whistled, for once impressed.

Charity focused and waved Ilid over to look. “There’s Bi’is, as my people would have seen it hundreds of years ago, if they’d been on Haven.”

He hesitated. For an instant, she thought he’d retreat rather than looking. Slowly he bent and peered through the eyepiece. He almost sounded relieved when he spoke. “It’s so tiny. It’s astonishing this device was at one time the apex of scientific tools.” He leaned back and gazed in amused wonder at the telescope.

“Isn’t it? A computer tied to the GC’s Polttuu space telescope could show you geographic formations on Bi’is’ surface. Yet my people discovered a number of planets with one of these before we had non-animal transportation. As did our common ancestors before they flew to the stars.”

Mitag took a turn. “It doesn’t do any calculations for you either. So primitive…but incredible too.”

“What happens if you’re proven correct about this sun’s existence? What does it mean for you?” Ilid asked.

Charity wondered if he could see her flush in the dark. “I realize it sounds like a big ego trip. My name would be attached as its discoverer. It could land me a great job at an observatory, so it’s a career-maker.”

The Dramok’s regard was warm. “You aren’t chasing accolades, though.”

“Don’t get me wrong; I’d enjoy the praise. I’m a mere ego-saddled mortal, after all. But to be the first to know something of such magnitude is out there…to be the first to realize what no one else has…”

She sounded foolish to her own ears. Pathetic, as if she were a toddler shouting,look at me, look what I did!But it wasn’t that at all. It would be the same as discovering a treasure. Or a cure for a devastating illness. Her sun, if it proved to be there, was a thrill she’d embrace whether the galaxy knew of her accomplishment or not.

“The heart of the explorer,” Ilid said. “Living to find a dream made real.”

She beamed at him. He understood. Somehow, despite her clumsy attempts to explain, he understood.

Detodev took his turn to peer at Bi’is through the lens. “I like this,” he said in his even voice that doggedly betrayed so little emotion. “It underlines the distance between the planets and stars. Too much is put so easily at our fingertips. Our modern technology makes it seem trivial how far our people have come from our beginnings. This reminds me how we had to work to get to this point.”

Charity joined Ilid and Mitag in gaping at the Nobek. He straightened and frowned at their regard.

Mitag recovered and chuckled. “You almost waxed poetic, you big thug.”

“Shut up. I have a brain.”

“I suspected it all along,” Charity grinned, then lightened up on him. “You’re right. It doesn’t apply only to stargazing, either. As backward as I complain Haven is, farming is a breeze compared to what it was when hunters and gatherers began planting rather than chasing their food. Sometimes I dream we might actually survive our worst selves.”

“I suppose there’s hope.”

Charity imagined there was a note of sadness in Detodev’s voice. She brushed off the notion and stared up at the clear sky. It was vast. Limitless, dotted by endless points of distant stars. “So clear,” she sighed. “You don’t get such views from Jedver’s surface, thanks to the light pollution.”

“Careful. We might get the idea you appreciate Haven,” Ilid chuckled.

She turned in a slow circle, her gaze sweeping the cosmos laid out like a computer star map. She’d already memorized the positions of Kalquor, Earth II, Joshada, Bi’is…so many planets twinkling when their turn to visit the night sky came. Haven held an impressive position to view its distant relatives and beyond.

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