“Graydal, we’re not greedy where I come from. We’re helpless.”

She studied him at length. He wondered, but could not see through the ripplings, what emotions passed across her face. Finally she spoke, not altogether urgently, though helmeted again in the reserve of her kindred, and he could not hear anything of it through the buzzings except: “…proceed, since we must. For a while, anyhow. Good watch, Ranger.”

The screen blanked. This time he couldn’t make the ship repair the connection for him.

* * *

At the heart of the great cluster, where the nebula was so thick as to be a nearly featureless glow, pearl-hued and shot with rainbows, the stars were themselves so close that thousands could be seen. The spaceships crept forward like frigates on unknown seas of ancient Earth. For here was more than fog; here were shoals, reefs, and riptides. Energies travailed in the plasma. Drifts of dust, loose planets, burnt-out suns lay in menace behind the denser clouds. Twice Makt would have met catastrophe had not Jaccavrie sensed the danger with keener instruments and cried a warning to sheer off.

After Demring’s subsequent urging had failed, Graydal came aboard in person to beg Laure that he turn homeward. That she should surrender her pride to such an extent bespoke how worn down she and her folk were. “What are we gaining worth the risk?” she asked shakenly.

“We’re proving that this is a treasure house of absolutely unique phenomena,” he answered. He was also hollowed, partly from the long travel and the now constant tension, partly from the half estrangement between him and her. He tried to put enthusiasm in his voice. Once we’ve reported, expeditions are certain to be organized. I’ll bet the foundations of two or three whole new sciences will get laid here.”

“I know. Everything astronomical, in abundance close together and interacting.” Her shoulders drooped. “But our task isn’t research. We can go back now, we could have gone back already, and carried enough details with us. Why do we not?”

“I want to investigate several planets yet, on the ground, in different systems,” he told her. “Then we’ll call a halt.”

“What do they matter to you?”

“Well, local stellar spectra are freakish. I want to know if the element abundances in solid bodies correspond.”

She stared at him. “I do not understand you,” she said. “I thought I did, but I was wrong. You have no compassion. You led us, you lured us so far in that we can’t escape without your ship for a guide. You don’t care how tired and tormented we are. You can’t, or won’t, understand why we are anxious to live.”

“I am myself,” he tried to grin. “I enjoy the process.”

The dark head shook. “I said you won’t understand. We do not fear death for ourselves. But most of us have not yet had children. We do fear death for our bloodlines. We need to find a home, forgetting Kirkasant, and begin our families. You, though, you keep us on this barren search—why? For your own glory?”