Текст книги "The Best and the Brightest"

Автор книги: Susan Wright

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

They kept mentioning “Rex.” That was one word familiar to Starsa because Bobbie Ray often dropped his native name into conversations. Women seemed to love the rumbling murmur, and Starsa had sometimes teased Bobbie Ray by mocking him with the sound in front of another one of his girlfriends.

Now, Starsa thought she would try it out for real. “Rum‑murrow‑ah,” she murmured in a low voice, trying to catch that precise rise at the end that gave the Rex name such a lilting, enchanting flair.

The two Rex stopped short, looking at Starsa with almost comical surprise. She laughed out loud, unable to stop herself. Then they looked annoyed.

“No, I’m sorry,” she tried to tell them. But she couldn’t help giggling again at their affronted expressions. They looked exactly like Bobbie Ray that time she put double‑stick tape on his sleep cushions.

The slightly smaller Rex let out a short, sharp note, very high, while the other gave a plaintive, high‑to‑low tone, much lower‑pitched. Starsa’s translator beeped and gave a literal interpretation, “Indignation! Protest!”

“All right,” Starsa told them, raising both her hands. “I said I’m sorry.”

Grudgingly, the Rex gave her a twisted piece of some kind of dried flesh that she had to gnaw on. They also gave her water, which she was properly grateful for. She banged the dried meat against her bunk a few times before dunking it in the remains of the water to soften it. She hoped they would get the message, but the Rex were concentrating on their shuttle controls.

Soon after that, a thrumming sound began to vibrate the bulkheads. Then she understood why her bunk was padded both below her and along the curved bulkhead. As the ship lifted off the ground, she felt a subtle pull toward the hull. She realized the gravity generators were situated so the hull was “down” from every direction. The Rex moved easily around the interior, using the controls on all four of the curved walls, resting casually on the small bare platforms and protruding benches.

Suddenly, the engineering puzzle became clear and Starsa understood how the Rex could pilot their strange craft. They leaped from one control to the other, defying the gravity to twist and turn in the air, landing exactly where they intended. It was so effortless that it looked like a beautiful dance.

The shuttle lifted out of the canyon, rotating as it cleared the top of the plateau. Starsa felt her stomach heave against the lazy turn, jostling the food and water she had eaten too fast. At first she swallowed, maintaining control, but when the ship seemed to fall sideways out from under her–while her eyes told her they were flying straight up–she let out an unattractive burp.

Both Rex swiveled their heads around to gape at her. Starsa held onto her stomach, her eyes bulging expressively as she hung on.

The Rex showed by every stiff motion that they knew what was going on. Their ears were twitching rapidly back and forth as they gently slowed the motion of the shuttle, giving Starsa’s body time to adjust.

They seemed annoyed at having to move at a crawl, but Starsa thought that it served them right after leaving her alone all day. Defiantly, she took another bite of her meat stick. Maybe if she disgusted them enough, they would toss her back where they found her.

As the shuttle began to descend, she thought her idiotic plan might actually be working. But the wicked glare in the Rex’s eye as he leaped toward her told her otherwise. Then he touched a hypospray to her neck and she dived into blackness, her hand still clenched around the half‑gnawed meat stick.

At first Starsa thought she was dreaming, then from the brightness against her eyelids, she realized that time must have passed. She could hardly move at first, and had trouble convincing herself that she had been knocked out all night. It felt like only a second, and she was very groggy, as if she had spent the night walking around and around the shuttle. But according to the deep crease in her arm from the half‑eaten meat stick, she had been lying there like a log for hours.

Neither of the Rex were in the shuttle, and moving to the furthest reach of the stasis restraint, she still couldn’t see them outside. The shuttle was resting in a different canyon now, aimed toward a sort of oasis along one wall. It was the first truly green vegetation she’d seen on this planet, but then, she hadn’t had a chance to see much.

Her canteen was nearby, so she drank some water to clear her head, then finished off her meal from the night before. When she had drunk as much as she could, she considered what to do with her only tool. Tightening the cap, she took aim and hurled it at the main control panel. The canteen bounced against the plassteel, but there was a reassuring crunching sound from one panel.

Unable to reach her canteen for another throw, Starsa spent her time dismantling the supports of her bunk. It was like a compulsive action, peeling the cushions off the base and wall, shredding them as she did. But if she stopped, words and images swirled around in her head as if trying to fill the void. She almost longed to be knocked out again. She had never woken up alone before, and it was deeply unnerving. The silence spoke too loudly, telling her that she wasn’t there if no one was able to validate her existence. Life was interconnected–she was nothing, yet she couldn’t be nothing, and she had to do something, anything to prove she was alive. At least the destroyed bunk was a testament to her will.

She noticed immediately when one of the Rex came down the rocky wash at the bottom of the canyon. He dropped down to one knee and perked his ears at some sound. Her only warning was a slight sideways flattening of his ears as the other Rex leaped out from behind a pile of jagged boulders that had fallen from the wall. Starsa thought they were fighting, but the bigger Rex rose up on his toes, dodging back before darting in to give the smaller one a few solid bats on the side of the head.

The smaller Rex bared his teeth, then, with a huge leap, he crossed the gap between them, grabbing onto the big Rex like a wrestler. They tumbled over the sand and rocks until the smaller one suddenly darted off. The big Rex let him go, shaking out his fur before opening the door to the shuttle. The chirping he was making sounded like he was laughing.

Then he saw the pile of bunk shreds scattered throughout the shuttle. Starsa looked around with him as if she had never seen it before, either. Actually, she hadn’t realized how much damage she had done, and it looked even worse than it was.

The Rex made high‑pitched, sustained noises aimed in her direction. He never stopped scolding her as he gathered up some of the shreds, dismayed by the extent of her work. Starsa had to cover her ears at the incessant, infuriating sounds, and she almost didn’t realize how much the translator was catching.

“Pestering little female! Useless! Get rid of it,” he muttered, giving her a murderous glance.

The other Rex appeared in the doorway, his ears up and alert. Their argument over what to do with her came through loud and clear. After listening to their plaintive whines, she realized how Bobbie Ray came by his fastidiousness.

Starsa didn’t care–at least she wasn’t alone anymore. Even better, while one of the Rex removed her restraint from the bed to his own ankle, Starsa managed to grab the tiny tool kit that was hooked to the flap of her bag. The two Rex were squabbling so hard that they didn’t notice as she slipped the palm‑sized kit into her pocket.

Before she could congratulate herself, she was jerked along with the Rex as they left the shuttle. She hated having to run to keep right by his side as she stumbled over rocks that he treated like smooth pavement. Climbing while restrained was even tougher. It took a great deal of time, but she managed to get up the side of the cliff, slipping more than once in what would have been a deadly fall. Every time, the stasis restraint caught her ankle and held her dangling until the other Rex could lift her up so she could grab hold of the rocks again. She felt like a toy bobbing on a string, and she began to wonder why they were bothering with her at all.

She found out when they staked her to the top of the plateau. She had a clear view of the oasis down below. The two Rex climbed back down, nearly to the floor of the canyon.

She thought they were leaving her there, exposing her to die. Her initial flush of indignation seemed absurd in the light of attempted murder, but she was comforted by her kit resting snugly against her ribs. All she needed was a little time with her tools, and she would be free of the restraint.

But the Rex stayed in sight, and she didn’t want to risk them catching her before she could trip the locking mechanism. As she fidgeted, she saw what they were watching for.

Several cadets came around the bend of the wash, distinctive in their gray coveralls. Even from a height of several hundred meters, Starsa easily recognized Bobbie Ray. They were tightly grouped, and a dark‑haired cadet was being carried. She could recognize Reoh by the way he walked, a hurried rush forward, a pause to check on the hurt cadet, calling forward to the lead cadet who walked in front with a bare knife. Starsa thought she recognized Reeves, one of the guys she grav‑boarded with.

She waved to get their attention, but they saw her almost at the same time. “Starsa!” Nev Reoh shouted, running forward as if a cliff didn’t rise between them.

“Watch out!” Starsa frantically gestured downward, trying to get them to see the Rex. “Bobby Ray! Bobby Ray! Down there!”

They couldn’t hear her because of the wind whistling through the narrow canyon. She could tell because they carefully set down the hurt cadet, while Bobbie Ray loped up the side canyon, heading toward the lowest part of the wall to help her.

She kept shouting, but it was no use. She could feel the wind snatch the words from her throat until it was raw. Her panic only made Bobbie Ray hurry faster, watching her, trying to figure out what her problem was. Nev Reoh was not far behind, calling up some kind of encouragement.

Bobbie Ray was quite close to the Rex when they emerged from the shadows of the rocks. One was on each side of him, moving in slowly.

The other two cadets below jostled in panic, dragging the injured cadet in the opposite direction. Bobbie Ray backed down the slope as fast as he could, catching up to Reoh, who was also trying to get away from the big Rex as they slowly closed the distance between them.

Starsa shielded her eyes against the blazing sunlight that glared off the polished white rocks at the top of the mesa. The Rex had used her as bait to lure the cadets in, making it easy to ambush them. Starsa leaned over the edge, straining against the restraint, trying to see as her teammates disappeared into the bottom of the canyon. They had used her as bait!

Grimly determined to make her escape, she pulled her kit from her coverall. Give her three minutes, and she would be free.

Bobbie Ray ran past Nev Reoh as they reached the canyon floor. It was like one of his childhood nightmares, being chased by a wild animal. Ijen and Reeves had dragged Puller into the niche that contained the water seep. They were standing among the pygmy trees, holding their knives out.

“I’ll draw them off!” Bobbie Ray called out, hoping the Rex wouldn’t stay and make mincemeat out of them.

He needn’t have worried. Glancing back, he saw that the Rex loped past the other cadets as if they didn’t exist. He also noticed that Reoh was right behind him, moving remarkably fast for a guy who couldn’t seem to walk without stumbling over his own feet. Bobbie Ray picked up speed, wishing Reoh had veered off to help Ijen and Reeves.

“No! Stop!” Reoh called out. But he was running as hard as he could, too, with the Rex right behind him.

Bobbie Ray wasn’t sure what Reoh was yelling about until he rounded a curve and came to a dead end in the canyon. He began scrambling up the steep sandstone side, honeycombed by weather. Some of the holes were a couple of feet across, others were a few meters or larger.

Nev Reoh fell further behind as Bobbie Ray reached a large hole. His whiskers quivered, sensing the eddies of the wind hitting the rear wall. The cliff grew steeper so he quickly made a tactical decision to make his stand here.

Nev Reoh was panting as he neared the lip of the shallow cave. Bobbie Ray reached down and grabbed his hand, hauling him inside.

They could hear the low‑pitched growling, a curious, sustained noise. The two Rex were just below, making that sound from the back of their throats. Their tails rhythmically lashed back and forth as they crouched and glared at Bobbie Ray.

His own ears were flattened against his head in a way he’d rarely felt before. He let out a half‑hearted squawk in response, a clear signal of his panic.

“What do we do?” Nev Reoh asked.

“How should I know?” Bobbie Ray countered.

“They’re yourpeople.”

“Humans are my people,” the Rex contradicted.

The two Rex climbed into their shallow cave, poised on the lip as if assessing the cadets.

“Maybe you should try to copy them,” Nev Reoh suggested helpfully. “Use your tail.”

“What do you mean–use it?”

“Swish it back and forth like they’re doing.”

Bobbie Ray glanced doubtfully back at his tail, then gave it a few experimental twitches, moving forward as he did. “That doesn’t feel right, somehow–”

Before he could finish his sentence, the two Rex rushed the cadets, snarling and spitting, their tails furiously lashing back and forth. Bobbie Ray and Nev Reoh scrambled deeper into their cave, brandishing their knives more out of fear than bravado.

Snarling, the two Rex faced them until it was clear they could no longer back up and that they weren’t about to advance. Then the Rex slowly began to retreat, making odd chirping noises as if they were laughing, as if they were leaving simply to prolong the hunt. Bobbie Ray could tell by their upright ears that they knew they could attack the two cadets at that very moment and rip them into shreds with their four‑inch claws.

“I didn’t know they could grow that long,” Bobbie Ray said in a hushed voice after the two Rex had withdrawn back down into the canyon.

Nev Reoh eyed the inch‑long rounded nubs that were instinctively splayed from the tip of each of Bobbie Ray’s fingers. “Maybe you should sharpen them up a little.”

“Yeah, like your tail suggestion was such a great idea!” Bobbie Ray snarled. “When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it.”

Reoh backed up, holding up his hands. “I know you’re better suited to handle this than me.”

Wearily, Bobbie Ray sat down and leaned his forehead against the wall of their niche. “Problem is, I don’t know what to do!”

Starsa grabbed Ijen’s pack after descending the cliff to the seep. When she saw the direction they had run, she used the ropes that had been left hanging by the seep to climb to the top of the plateau.

Tracking the cadets through a side canyon, she saw the Rex pacing in the bottom. They were focused on a hole in the cliff wall, waiting for the cadets to come out of hiding.

Starsa ran around the deep cut in the plateau, to the edge just above Bobbie Ray and Reoh. She tied one end of the rope around several boulders. Crouching down to stay out of the range of the Rex’s keen eyesight, she neared the edge to judge the right spot to lower the rope.

The bigger Rex abruptly stopped in his tracks, raising his head slightly and drawing back his upper lip. She could see his tongue flicking the roof of his half‑open mouth. The Rex seemed to be almost in a trancelike state for a few moments, holding its breath and staring straight ahead. Then it abruptly shook its head and looked directly at her.

Starsa wasn’t about to get into a staring match with the Rex. She never won with Bobbie Ray, always ending up blinking first or turning away from his huge, unwavering gold eyes.

She dropped the rope. “Bobbie Ray! Nev Reoh! Grab the rope!”

Bobbie Ray leaned out of the hole in the wall, giving her a wide‑eyed stare. “Hurry!” she shouted at him.

As Bobbie Ray began to claw his way up the cliff, leaving deep grooves in the wall from his hind claws, the other two Rex retreated to a place where they could get up the cliff. Starsa chewed on her lip, watching their fast progress.

“They want you!”she told Bobbie Ray.

“How reassuring,” he retorted, nervously watching as the Rex bounded gracefully up the steep slope.

“Help me!”Nev Reoh wailed from below, dangling from the rope like he’d run out of strength.

With Bobbie Ray’s assistance, Starsa pulled Nev Reoh up at least a body length, looping the rope around the boulders to give them leverage. They gave another mighty heave, bringing the Bajoran near the lip of the plateau.

“Uh‑oh!” Bobbie Ray exclaimed, as the Rex reached the plateau and headed for them.

“You’re talking to them wrong,” Starsa panted.

“They haven’t given me a chance to talk to them,” Bobbie Ray protested.

“They talk with their bodies, not their mouths! Go meet them,” Starsa told him, hanging on to the rope with all her might. “Reoh, you’ll have to climb up the last bit!”

Hesitantly, Bobbie Ray moved forward to meet them.

“Not like that!” Starsa exclaimed. “Make yourself look bigger! Fluff everything out–”

“I’m going to get killed,” Bobbie Ray muttered.

“Think of it as stylized combat. I doubt they really want to hurt us–or they would have killed me. They’re confused because you’re not responding right.” She grunted, holding onto the rope. “Reoh, get your Bajoran butt up here! A three‑year‑old could climb faster than you!”

Bobbie Ray faced the two large Rex as they cautiously approached, no longer growling as they had when he had run. He realized he was on the balls of his feet, and his shoulders instinctively squared to make as himself appear as big as possible.

They began to circle, and he kept his face toward them, backpedaling slightly to keep them from surrounding him. The smaller Rex fell back, letting the larger one move in.

All Bobbie Ray could see were the enormous incisors of the Rex and each one of those four‑inch claws. The hair on his spine crawled, as if sensing the way those jaws would clamp on the back of his neck to deliver the killing bite.

“Make the first move,” Starsa hissed from behind him.

Bobbie Ray gave her a quick glare. Why hadn’t his parents ever taught him about Rex? Surely they knew that, going into Starfleet, he was bound to encounter his own kind. If he got out of this, he was going to have a long talk with his mother.

“Go on!” Starsa urged. “Be tough. Put your ears back, like when you’re challenging someone to a fight.”

“You’re interfering with my concentration,” Bobbie Ray snapped.

The Rex stopped, seemingly confused, looking from him to Starsa. Bobbie Ray realized she was right, and he began advancing slowly, weaving from side to side, taking care to rotate his ears so the backs faced frontward, in what Starsa said was his “growly” look.

It seemed to work, because the other Rex immediately flattened his ears, not just turning them back but making them almost disappear. Bobbie Ray tried out a low growl or two, but was less than pleased when a spine‑chilling wail seemed to rise from nowhere.

“What’s that?” Nev Reoh asked, peeking over the edge of the plateau.

“I think it’s coming from him,” Bobbie Ray said out of the corner of his mouth. This time he was careful not to break his stance. Knowing he could never compete with that unearthly sound, Bobbie Ray made a big show of moving forward a few inches, his legs absurdly stiff.

“That’s good,” Starsa called out encouragement. “I think you’re scaring him.”

“Is that a good idea?” Bobbie Ray murmured, advancing, then pausing, giving the Rex plenty of time to call it quits.

As the Rex came very near, his head seemed to twist as if focusing in on Bobbie Ray from a different angle. He took a slow step forward and twisted his head the other way, and Bobbie Ray started to get the feeling that he was a sitting duck. A rather realistic growling whine rose from the back of his throat, rumbling out and rising in power as adrenaline‑laced panic sang through his nerves.

They both slowed, moving in tiny increments, balanced only by each other’s shifting. The Rex was screaming directly at him, frozen, and Bobbie Ray felt the same compulsion to glare at his rival, to move even slower, as if not to admit fear.

Suddenly his adversary lunged toward him, and Bobbie Ray shied back, trying to get room to maneuver. The Rex came in over his back to get his teeth on Bobbie Ray’s neck. The cadet kicked out his leg, swiping support from under the Rex, causing both of them to tumble away from each other.

Bobbie Ray was quickly back on his feet, twitching his fur, trying to feel if he had been slashed by those deadly claws. But the Rex hadn’t connected. Bobbie Ray silently blessed every hand‑to‑hand defense instructor he’d ever had.

The Rex seemed even more wary this time, but he stared hard at him before coming in again, taking a defensive posture. When Bobbie Ray immediately countered his stance, the Rex didn’t move in as close this time. After a few frozen moments, wailing and rumbling loud enough to make Starsa cover her ears, the Rex finally began to ease back.

Bobbie Ray felt himself relax with every centimeter the Rex slowly retreated. It was so gradual that he wasn’t sure it was over until both the Rex faded away, turning and disappearing down into the canyon.

“You did it!” Starsa exclaimed, clapping her hands. She jumped on Bobbie Ray, wrapping her arms around his neck.

He was practically rigid, still in his alert‑stance, feeling strangely exhilarated and unwilling to break his pose. “Let go,” he ordered under his breath.

Laughing, Starsa jumped down and did a little dance. “We did it! We did it!”

“They might come back any second,” Nev Reoh said, edging up to them. Bobbie Ray noticed he stayed well out of arm’s reach.

“No, they won’t,” both Bobbie Ray and Starsa said at the same time. She grinned, and he finally felt his whiskers move in response, lying smoothly against his face as his teeth showed in a smile.

They didn’t even make it back to the seep to rejoin Ijen, Puller, and Reeves before the cadet ship signaled them to await transport. As the stark landscape faded from view, Bobbie Ray knew it would be forever burned into his memory, along with the victory he’d had facing down the Rex.

“There were no fatalities among the cadets,” the survival instructor informed them on reaching the ship. “Everyone has automatically passed their survival test, whether they regrouped or not.”

Bobbie Ray had completely forgotten about the Academy, and it seemed very far away with the battlelust still thrumming through his blood.

“When we realized it was a ruse,” the instructor added, “we fought our way back though the Rex shuttles that were holding us off. We believe they were drawn here because of yourlifesigns, Cadet Jefferson. We could tell there was a confrontation going on down there. What happened?”

Bobbie Ray shrugged one shoulder. “It was some sort of mock battle. As soon as I engaged them, they withdrew.”

He knew that didn’t explain everything, but he also knew there was no way to talk about what had happened. It was more subtle and more powerful than anything he had ever felt before. He was used to always being the strongest, the fastest, the most agile, but when his own kind had challenged him, he felt as bumbling and awkward as Nev Reoh. He had gone into security because it came naturally and was easy for him, but after seeing the Rex laughingat him while he was stuck in that hole, he realized how much he had let his natural abilities slide.

Now he couldn’t wait to get back to the Academy and try some of those intimidation techniques used by the Rex. Just wait until his instructors saw what he could do!

Chapter Five

MOLL ENOR WAS RETURNING from the back of the science pod, balso tonic in hand, when she overheard Cadet Campbell saying to Cadet Wu, “I do not know the cadet well enough to say.”

“Yeah, that’s my point,” Wu agreed with a wry grin. “You’d think after a month of living on the science station together–”

He broke off abruptly as Moll Enor appeared around the central power assembly. Cadet Wu was leaning forward curiously, intent on gossiping with the taciturn Campbell. Cadet Campbell was concentrating on his console, frowning slightly, but even he started in surprise at Moll’s appearance.

That’s when Moll realized they were talking about her. She flushed hotly, avoiding their eyes, thankful that they probably wouldn’t notice the way her spots suddenly stood out. Ever since she had won top honors in her class, all the cadets knew who she was. They constantly watched her and talked about her. She was the freak again, exactly as she had been on the Trill homeworld, where having a photographic memory was extremely rare.

“Excuse me, sir,” Moll said to Cadet Mantegna, the designated commander on this tagging and tracking mission within the ring nebula. “Do you have the latest readings on the levels of interior microwave radiation?”

Mantegna sighed at her interruption, not bothering to look up. “It will have to wait a few minutes, Cadet Enor. I’m in the middle of the infrared sensor sweep right now.” Mantegna flicked Moll a glance as she hesitated. “Is that all?”

“Yes, sir,” Moll said, backing away.

She made it back to her station, where she was running a computer program of the numerous mathematical equations that plotted the movements of the asteroids as they spun and tumbled in the turbulence of the ring nebula, moving in a roughly helixical orbit. There was only a three‑second delay from the sensor pickups to mathematical translation, so she was basically seeing a real‑time flow of data, gathered for an in‑depth analysis by the astrophysics lab. For Moll, the work had been routine the second day, and except when she was in command of their science pod, she had spent the better part of four weeks staring with glazed eyes at the screen, hypnotized by the chaotic pattern that appeared and disappeared within the data.

The Federation astrophysics lab, poised outside the Trifid ring nebula, was considered a prime field assignment. Though it was relatively small, it was close to Sol system, so teams of cadets were rotated in. The cadets used the science pod, the Sagittarius,to do the grunt work of collecting data in the neverending surveys of the debris. Based on the data, some scientists theorized that the protosolar system was destroyed when a subspace compression collided with the Trifid star, causing it to go supernova and eject most of its mass.

Whereas most nebula expand away from their source, diffusing high‑energy particles and cosmic rays, the compression phenomenon caused the Trifid ring nebula to rotate in on itself, forming a churning toroid around a strong gravity well. It was almost as awe‑inspiring as the Bajoran wormhole, which she had gone to see during the summer break while on field assignment on the Oberth‑class science ship, the Copernicus.

Because of her first‑place standing in her class, Moll Enor had also been able to choose to come to the Trifid ring nebula. From the science station, Moll liked to watch the toroid bands of color caused by the centrifugal action of the gases. The bands were separated into turquoise blue darkening to purple in the center, surrounded by a wide band of yellow, and thinner bands of red and green on the outer edge.

The colors were so brilliant that the first time she entered the gas cloud, she expected it to appear opaque inside. Instead, the interior shimmered with luminous discharges arcing between the tumbling asteroids, creating a delicate tracery of fine molecular chains, endlessly twisting and tangling together.

Her station signaled when data was received from Mantegna’s internal synchrotron scan. Electrons moving at nearly the speed of light inevitably leaked into the Sagittariusas they spiraled about the magnetic field of the nebula. The other cadets were getting negligent with the Starfleet protocol of manually confirming the automatic scans, but it was necessary, since synchrotron radiation often distorted scanner readings.

Moll hadn’t told them that Trill who were joined with the vermiform symbiont were particularly sensitive to annular phase transitions. Some joined Trill weren’t able to use the transporter system. She didn’t have that problem, but she didn’t want to find out the hard way that the Enor symbiont was sensistive to higher levels of synchrotron radiation.

Mantegna muttered something as he abruptly began running a systems diagnostic check.

“What’s wrong?” Wu asked.

Mantegna stood up to activate the power boost. “I’m trying to find out. The comm link won’t open.”

“Maybe something’s wrong with the phase buffers on the emitters,” Wukee suggested. “Or the ones on the relay. Remember last week–”

“If you would give me a moment,” Mantegna interrupted, “I’ll tell you where the malfunction is. . . .” Campbell turned along with Moll as Mantegna thoughtfully murmured, “Hmm . . .” over the data.

“Well? Are you going to tell us?” Wukee asked insistently.

Mantegna reseated himself at the navigation console. “The problem is in the communications relay.” He scanned for the nearest relay buoy.

Since Moll received the same telemetry report on the asteroids, she knew the nearest relay was in the tertiary phase layer of the nebula–what appeared to be the thick yellow ring from the exterior. Inside, there was no difference in the twinkling brightness of layers upon layers of discharge filaments that constantly appeared and disappeared between the asteroids. But cadet research teams were only supposed to catalog and tag asteroids in the outer red and green bands, because the turbulence of the magnetic field increased exponentially toward the gravity well.

Mantegna asked Moll, “When will the next science team come through this section?”