“And happy they’ll be to hear it, too—tentative though it may be,” the other Outsider on the shuttle commented.

“We’ve spent enough time here.” Broh moved to the hatch barring the far end of the lock and studied the controls. They were duplicates of those outside the ship. He touched what should have been the proper one for opening the door. Nothing happened. He tried the other, with the same disappointing result.

“Try them in opposite sequence,” suggested the first observer. Broh did so and was rewarded when the hatch slid sideways into the wall. The outer hatch had retracted upward. Broh wondered idly if the disparity of direction was functional, aesthetic, or designed to satisfy some sense he could not imagine.

A corridor gleamed beyond, brightly lit and beckoning. They cautiously exited the lock, pausing repeatedly to marvel at various peculiar aspects of the walls and ceiling. The science council continually had to be urged onward, or they would have spent a timepart arguing over the function and purpose of each tiny control or extrusion.

As they moved deeper into the alien ship the party encountered smoke. Broh and the Outsiders kept their hands close to their holstered stingers, their attention on each new doorway and opening.

The lighting was harsh, though whether this was due to damage or intention they had no way of knowing. Broh wondered at the sources of the smoke. They paused at one complex instrument panel that was a flickering galaxy of exploding sparks and melted metal. Broh studied the ruined panel and the metal that had run beneath it, then moved on to examine a similar console that was still intact. It boasted a screen in its center and bulky controls below.

More interesting was the saddle set into the deck before it It had to be a saddle, since it seemed an unlikely place to put an abstract sculpture. It was much higher off the floor than any Thranx could manage. Not that they could have rested on it even if it had been lower. It was impossibly small and flat, yet very different from the AAnn saddles the science council had studied.

“I don’t see how that could belong to any large intelligent creature,” the first observer said. “It seems too small to support anything but a krep-size animal, yet everything else aboard this ship hints that it was built and used by large creatures. The dichotomy is puzzling.”

“It seems certain that whoever they are, they’re completely alien,” Broh said. The Outsiders’ nervousness increased.

Every screen they encountered thereafter was placed well above normal eye level. Only standing on one’s hind legs would enable one to see the topmost controls. Everything save the peculiar stunted saddles pointed to creatures larger than the Thranx or the AAnn.

They moved deeper into the ship, pausing at regular intervals to check in with the two Outsiders running the shuttle.

The one thing Broh had wished for and which they hadn’t encountered were alien atmosphere suits. Used, perhaps, while abandoning ship? Stored elsewhere? He didn’t know, but his mental reconstruction of this ship’s crew was not very pleasant.