Tuf finished his pie in three neat bites, and cleaned his greasy fingers on a napkin. “You belabor the obvious, sir,” he said. He held up a long, callused finger. “Another,” he said.
Rebuffed, the vendor fetched out another pie without further observations, letting Tuf eat in relative peace. As he savored the flaky crust and tartness within, Tuf studied the milling fairgoers, the rows of vendors’ booths, and the five great halls that loomed over the landscape. When he had done eating, he turned back to the pieman, his face as blank as ever. “Sir. If you will, a question.”
“What’s that?” the other said gruffly.
“I see five exhibition halls,” said Haviland Tuf. “I have visited each in turn.” He pointed. “Brazelourn, Vale Areen, New Janus, Vagabond, and here Ptola.” Tuf folded his hands together neatly atop his bulging stomach. “Five, sir. Five halls, five worlds. No doubt, being a stranger as I am, I am unfamiliar with some subtle point of local usage, yet I am perplexed. In those regions where I have heretofore traveled, a gathering calling itself the Six Worlds Bio-Agricultural Exhibition might be expected to include exhibits from six worlds. Plainly that is not the case here. Perhaps you might enlighten me as to why?”
“No one came from Namor.”
“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf.
“On account of the troubles,” the vendor added.
“All is made clear,” said Tuf. “Or, if not all, at least a portion. Perhaps you would care to serve me another pie, and explain to me the nature of these troubles. I am nothing if not curious, sir. It is my great vice, I fear.”
The pieman slipped on his glove again and opened the hotbox. “You know what they say. Curiosity makes you hungry.”
“Indeed,” said Tuf. “I must admit I have never heard them say that before.”
The man frowned. “No, I got it wrong. Hunger makes you curious, that’s what it is. Don’t matter. My pies will fill you up.”
“Ah,” said Tuf. He took up the pie. “Please proceed.”
So the pie-seller told him, at great rambling length, about the troubles on the world Namor. “So you can see,” he finally concluded, “why they didn’t come, with all this going on. Not much to exhibit.”
“Of course,” said Haviland Tuf, dabbing his lips. “Sea monsters can be most vexing.”
Namor was a dark green world, moonless and solitary, banded by wispy golden clouds. The Ark shuddered out of drive and settled ponderously into orbit around it. In the long, narrow communications room, Haviland Tuf moved from seat to seat, studying the planet on a dozen of the room’s hundred viewscreens. Three small grey kittens kept him company, bounding across the consoles, pausing only to slap at each other. Tuf paid them no mind.
A water world, Namor had only one landmass decently large enough to be seen from orbit, and that none too large. But magnification revealed thousands of islands scattered in long, crescent-shaped archipelagoes across the deep green seas, earthen jewels strewn throughout the oceans. Other screens showed the lights of dozens of cities and towns on the nightside, and pulsing dots of energy outlay where settlements sat in sunlight.
Tuf looked at it all, and then seated himself, flicked on another console, and began to play a war game with the computer. A kitten bounded up into his lap and went to sleep. He was careful not to disturb it. Some time later, a second kitten vaulted up and pounced on it, and they began to tussle. Tuf brushed them to the floor.
It took longer than even Tuf had anticipated, but finally the challenge came, as he had known it would. “Ship in orbit,” came the demand, “ship in orbit, this is Namor Control. State your name and business. State your name and business, please. Interceptors have been dispatched. State your name and business.”
The transmission was coming from the chief land-mass. The Ark tapped into it. At the same time, it found the ship that was moving toward them—there was only one—and flashed it on another screen.
“I am the Ark,” Haviland Tuf told Namor Control.
Namor Control was a round-faced woman with close-cropped brown hair, sitting at a console and wearing a deep green uniform with golden piping. She frowned, her eyes flicking to the side, no doubt to a superior or another console. “Ark,” she said, “state your homeworld. State your homeworld and your business, please.”
The other ship had opened communications with the planet, the computer indicated. Two more viewscreens lit up. One showed a slender young woman with a large, crooked nose on a ship’s bridge, the other an elderly man before a console. They both wore green uniforms, and they were conversing animatedly in code. It took the computer less than a minute to break it, so Tuf could listen in. “ . . . damned if I know what it is,” the woman on the ship was saying. “There’s never been a ship that big. My God, just look at it. Are you getting all this? Has it answered?”
“Ark,” the round-faced woman was still saying, “state your homeworld and your business, please. This is Namor Control.”
Haviland Tuf cut into the other conversation, to talk to all three of them simultaneously. “This is the Ark,” he said. “I have no homeworld, sirs. My intentions are purely peaceful—trade and consultation. I learned of your tragic difficulties, and moved by your plight, I have come to offer you my services.”
The woman on the ship looked startled. “What are you . . . ” she started. The man was equally nonplussed, but he said nothing, only gaped open-mouthed at Tuf’s blank white visage.
“This is Namor Control, Ark,” said the round-faced woman. “We are closed to trade. Repeat, we are closed to trade. We are under martial law here.”
By then the slender woman on the ship had composed herself. “Ark, this is Guardian Kefira Qay, commanding NGS Sunrazor. We are armed, Ark. Explain yourself. You are a thousand times larger than any trader I have ever seen, Ark. Explain yourself or be fired upon.”
“Indeed,” said Haviland Tuf. “Threats will avail you little, Guardian. I am most sorely vexed. I have come all this long way from Braelourn to offer you my aid and solace, and you meet me with threats and hostility.” A kitten leapt up into his lap. Tuf scooped it up with a huge white hand, and deposited it on the console in front of him, where the viewer would pick it up. He gazed down at it sorrowfully. “There is no trust left in humanity,” he said to the kitten.
“Hold your fire, Sunrazor,” said the elderly man. “Ark, if your intentions are truly peaceful, explain yourself. What are you? We are hard-pressed here, Ark, and Namor is a small, undeveloped world. We have never seen your like before. Explain yourself.”
Haviland Tuf stroked the kitten. “Always I must truckle to suspicion,” he told it. “They are fortunate that I am so kind-hearted, or else I would simply depart and leave them to their fate.” He looked up, straight into the viewer. “Sir,” he said. “I am the Ark. I am Haviland Tuf, captain and master here, crew entire. You are troubled by great monsters from the depths of your seas, I have been told. Very well. I shall rid you of them.”
“Ark, this is Sunrazor. How do you propose doing that?”
“The Ark is a seedship of the Ecological Engineering Corps,” said Haviland Tuf with stiff formality. “I am an ecological engineer and a specialist in biological warfare.”
“Impossible,” said the old man. “The EEC was wiped out a thousand years ago, along with the Federal Empire. None of their seedships remain.”
“How distressing,” said Haviland Tuf. “Here I sit in an illusion. No doubt, now that you have told me my ship does not exist, I shall sink right through it and plunge into your atmosphere, where I shall burn up as I fall.”
“Guardian,” said Kefira Qay from the Sunrazor, “these seedships may indeed no longer exist, but I am fast closing on something that my scopes tell me is almost thirty kilometers long. It does not appear to be an illusion.”
“I am not yet falling,” admitted Haviland Tuf.
“Can you truly help us?” asked the round-faced woman at Namor Control.
“Why must I always be doubted?” Tuf as
ked the small grey kitten.
“Lord Guardian, we must give him the chance to prove what he says,” insisted Namor Control.
Tuf looked up. “Threatened, insulted, and doubted as I have been, nonetheless my empathy for your situation bids me to persist. Perhaps I might suggest that Sunrazor dock with me, so to speak. Guardian Qay may come aboard and join me for an evening meal, while we converse. Surely your suspicions cannot extend to mere conversation, that most civilized of human pastimes.”
The three Guardians conferred hurriedly with each other and with a person or persons offscreen, while Haviland Tuf sat back and toyed with the kitten. “I shall name you Suspicion,” he said to it, “to commemorate my reception here. Your siblings shall be Doubt, Hostility, Ingratitude and Foolishness.”
“We accept your proposal, Haviland Tuf,” said Guardian Kefira Qay from the bridge of the Sunrazor. “Prepare to be boarded.”
“Indeed,” said Tuf. “Do you like mushrooms?”
The shuttle deck of the Ark was as large as the landing field of a major starport, and seemed almost a junkyard for derelict spacecraft. The Ark’s own shuttles stood trim in their launch berths, five identical black ships with rakish lines and stubby triangular wings angling back, designed for atmospheric flight and still in good repair. Other craft were less impressive. A teardrop-shaped trading vessel from Avalon squatted wearily on three extended landing legs, next to a driveshift courier scored by battle, and a Karaleo lionboat whose ornate trim was largely gone. Elsewhere stood vessels of stranger, more alien design.
Above, the great dome cracked into a hundred pie-wedge segments, and drew back to reveal a small yellow sun surrounded by stars, and a dull green manta-shaped ship of about the same size as one of Tuf’s shuttles. The Sunrazor settled, and the dome closed behind it. When the stars had been blotted out again, atmosphere came swirling back in to the deck, and Haviland Tuf arrived soon after.
Kefira Qay emerged from her ship with her lips set sternly beneath her big, crooked nose, but no amount of control could quite conceal the awe in her eyes. Two armed men in golden coveralls trimmed with green followed her.
Haviland Tuf drove up to them in an open three-wheeled cart. “I am afraid that my dinner invitation was only for one, Guardian Qay,” he said wheh he saw her escort. “I regret any misunderstanding, yet I must insist.”
“Very well,” she said. She turned to her guard. “Wait with the others. You have your orders.” When she got in next to Tuf she told him, “The Sunrazor will tear your ship apart if I am not returned safely within two standard hours.”
Haviland Tuf blinked at her. “Dreadful,” he said. “Everywhere my warmth and hospitality is met with mistrust and violence.” He set the vehicle into motion.
They drove in silence through a maze of interconnected rooms and corridors, and finally entered a huge shadowy shaft that seemed to extend the full length of the ship in both directions. Transparent vats of a hundred different sizes covered walls and ceiling as far as the eye could see, most empty and dusty, a few filled with colored liquids in which half-seen shapes stirred feebly. There was no sound but a wet, viscous dripping somewhere off behind them. Kefira Qay studied everything and said nothing. They went at least three kilometers down the great shaft, until Tuf veered off into a blank wall that dilated before them. Shortly thereafter they parked and dismounted.
A sumptuous meal had been laid out in the small, spartan dining chamber to which Tuf escorted the Guardian Kefira Qay. They began with iced soup, sweet and piquant and black as coal, followed by neograss salads with a gingery topping. The main course was a breaded mushroom top full as large as the plate on which it was served, surrounded by a dozen different sorts of vegetables in individual sauces. The Guardian ate with great relish.
“It would appear you find my humble fare to your taste,” observed Haviland Tuf.
“I haven’t had a good meal in longer than I care to admit,” replied Kefira Qay. “On Namor, we have always depended on the sea for our sustenance. Normally it is bountiful, but since our troubles began . . . ” She lifted a forkful of dark, misshapen vegetables in a yellow-brown sauce. “What am I eating? It’s delightful.”
“Rhiannese sinners’ root, in a mustard sauce,” Haviland Tuf said.
Qay swallowed and set down her fork. “But Rhiannon is so far, how do you . . . ” She stopped.
“Of course,” Tuf said, steepling his fingers beneath his chin as he watched her face. “All this provender derives from the Ark, though originally it might be traced back to a dozen different worlds. Would you like more spiced milk?”
“No,” she muttered. She gazed at the empty plates. “You weren’t lying, then. You are what you claim, and this is a seedship of the . . . what did you call them?”
“The Ecological Engineering Corps, of the long-defunct Federal Empire. Their ships were few in number, and all but one destroyed by the vicissitudes of war. The Ark alone survived, derelict for a millennium. The details need not concern you. Suffice it to say that I found it, and made it functional.”
“You found it?”
“I believe I just said as much, in those very same words. Kindly pay attention. I am not partial to repeating myself. Before finding the Ark, I made a humble living from trade. My former ship is still on the landing deck. Perhaps you chanced to see it.”
“Then you’re really just a trader.”
“Please!” said Tuf with indignation. “I am an ecological engineer. The Ark can remake whole planets, Guardian. True, I am but one man, alone, when once this ship was crewed by two hundred, and I do lack the extensive formal training such as was given centuries ago to those who wore the golden theta, the sigil of the Ecological Engineers. Yet, in my own small way, I contrive to muddle through. If Namor would care to avail itself of my services, I have no doubt that I can help you.”
“Why?” the slender Guardian asked warily. “Why are you so anxious to help us?”
Haviland Tuf spread his big white hands helplessly. “I know, I might appear a fool. I cannot help myself. I am a humanitarian by nature, much moved by hardship and suffering. I could no more abandon your people, beset as they are, than I could harm one of my cats. The Ecological Engineers were made of sterner stuff, I fear, but I am helpless to change my sentimental nature. So here I sit before you, prepared to do my best.”
“You want nothing?”
“I shall labor without recompense,” said Tuf. “Of course, I will have operating expenses. I must charge a small fee to offset them. Say, three million standards. Do you think that fair?”
“Fair,” she said sarcastically. “Fairly high, I’d say. There have been others like you, Tuf—arms merchants and soldiers of fortune who have come to grow rich off our misery.”
“Guardian,” said Tuf, reproachfully, “you do me grievous wrong. I take little for myself. The Ark is so large, so costly. Perhaps two million standards would suffice? I cannot believe you would grudge me this pittance. Is your world worth less?”
Kefira Qay sighed, a tired look etched on her narrow face. “No,” she admitted. “Not if you can do all you promise. Of course, we are not a rich world. I will have to consult my superiors. This is not my decision alone.” She stood up abruptly. “Your communications facilities?”
“Through the door and left down the blue corridor. The fifth door on the right.” Tuf rose with ponderous dignity, and began cleaning up as she left.
When the Guardian returned he had opened a decanter of liquor, vividly scarlet, and was stroking a black-and-white cat who had made herself at home on the table. “You’re hired, Tuf,” said Kefira Qay, seating herself. “Two million standards. After you win this war.”
“Agreed,” said Tuf. “Let us discuss your situation over glasses of this delightful beverage.”
“Alcoholic?”
“Mildly narcotic.”
“A Guardian uses no stimulants or depressants. We are a fighting guild. Substances like that pollute the body and slow the reflexes. A Gu
ardian must be vigilant. We guard and protect.”
“Laudable,” said Haviland Tuf. He filled his own glass.
“Sunrazor is wasted here. It has been recalled by Namor Control. We need its combat capabilities below.”
“I shall expedite its departure, then. And yourself?”
“I have been detached,” she said, wrinkling up her face. “We are standing by with data on the situation below. I am to help brief you, and act as your liaison officer.”
The water was calm, a tranquil green mirror from horizon to horizon.
It was a hot day. Bright yellow sunlight poured down through a thin bank of gilded clouds. The ship rested still on the water, its metallic sides flashing silver-blue, its open deck a small island of activity in an ocean of peace. Men and women small as insects worked the dredges and nets, bare-chested in the heat. A great claw full of mud and weeds emerged from the water, dripping, and was sluiced down an open hatchway. Elsewhere bins of huge milky jellyfish baked in the sun.
Suddenly there was agitation. For no apparent reason, people began to run. Others stopped what they were doing and looked around, confused. Still others worked on, oblivious. The great metal claw, open and empty now, swung back out over the water and submerged again, even as another one rose on the far side of the ship. More people were running. Two men collided and went down.
Then the first tentacle came curling up from beneath the ship.
It rose and rose. It was longer than the dredging claws. Where it emerged from the dark green sea, it looked as thick as a big man’s torso. It tapered to the size of an arm. The tentacle was white, a soft slimy sort of white. All along its underside were vivid pink circles big as dinner plates, circles that writhed and pulsed as the tentacle curled over and about the huge farming ship. The end of the tentacle split into a rat’s nest of smaller tentacles, dark and restless as snakes.
Up and up it went, and then over and down, pinioning the ship. Something moved on the other side, something pale stirring beneath all that green, and the second tentacle emerged. Then a third, and a fourth. One wrestled with a dredging claw. Another had the remains of a net draped all about it, like a veil, which didn’t seem to hinder it. Now all the people were running—all but those the tentacles had found. One of them had curled itself around a woman with an axe. She hacked at it wildly, thrashing in the pale embrace, until her back arched and suddenly she fell still. The tentacle dropped her, white fluid pulsing feebly from the gashes she had left, and seized someone else.