Anne McCaffrey - Ship 3 - The Ship Who Searched

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y#THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

By: Anne McCaffrey

Version 1.1

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this

book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely

coincidental.

thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

ISBN: 0-671-72129-1

Cover art by Stephen Hickman

First printing, August 1992

Second printing, April 1994

Distributed by Paramount Publishing

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Printed in the United States of America

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

CHAPTER ONE

The ruby light on the com unit was blinking when Hypatia Cade emerged

from beneath the tutor's hood, with quadratic equations dancing before her

seven year old eyes. Not the steady blink that meant a recorded message, nor

the triple-beat that meant Mum or Dad had left her a note, but the double

blink with a pause between each pair that meant there was someone Upstairs,

waiting for her to open the channel.

Someone Upstairs meant an unscheduled ship. Tia knew very well when all

the scheduled visits were; they were on the family calendar and were the first

things reported by the AI when they all had breakfast That made it important

for her to answer, quickly, and not take the time to suit up and run to the

dig for Mum or Dad. It must not have been an emergency, though, or the AI

would have interrupted her lesson.

She rubbed her eyes to rid them of the dancing variables, and pushed her

stool over to the com console so she could reach all the touch-pads when she

stood on it. She would never have been able to reach things sitting in a

chair, of course. With brisk efficiency that someone three times her age might

have envied, she cleared the board, warmed up the relay, and opened the line.

"Exploratory Team Cee-One-Two-One," she enunciated carefully, for the

microphone was old, and often lost anything not spoken clearly. "Exploratory

Team Cee-One-Two-One, receiving. Come in, please. Over."

She counted out the four second lag to orbit and back, nervously.

One-hypotenuse, Two-hypotenuse, Three-hypotenuse, Four-hypotenuse. Who could

it be? They didn't get unscheduled ships very often, and it meant bad news as

often as not. Planet pirates, plague, or slavers. Trouble with some of the

colony planets. Or worse, artifact thieves in the area. A tiny dig like this

one was all too vulnerable to a hit-and-run raid. Of course, digs on the

Salomon-Kildaire Entities rarely yielded anything a collector would lust

after, but would thieves know that? Tia had her orders, if raiders came and

she was alone, to duck down the hidden escape tunnel that would blow the dome;

to run to the dark little hidey away from the dig that was the first thing Mum

and Dad put in once the dome was up.

"This is courier TM Three-Seventy. Tia, dearest, is that you? Don't

worry, love, we have a non-urgent message run and you're on the way, so we

brought you your packets early. Over." The rich, contralto voice was a bit

flattened by the poor speaker, but still welcome and familiar, Tia jumped up

and down a bit on her stool in excitement.

"Moira! Yes, yes, it's me! But, " She frowned a little. The last time

Moira had been here, her designation had been CM, not TM. "Moira, what

happened to Charlie?" Her seven year old voice took on the half scolding tones

of someone much older. "Moira, did you scare away another brawn? Shame on you!

Remember what they told you when you kicked Ari out your airlock! Uh, over."

Four seconds; an eternity. "I didn't scare him away, darling," Moira

replied, though Tia thought she sounded just a little guilty. "He decided to

get married, raise a brood of his own, and settle down as a dirtsider. Don't

worry, this will be the last one, I'm sure of it. Tomas and I get along

famously. Over."

"That's what you said about Charlie," Tia reminded her darkly. "And

about Ari, and Lilian, and Jules, and, "

She was still reciting names when Moira interrupted her. "Turn on the

landing beacon, Tia, please. We can talk when I'm not burning fuel in orbital

adjustments." Her voice turned a little bit sly. "Besides, I brought you a

birthday present. That's why I couldn't miss stopping here. Over."

As if a birthday present was going to distract her from the litany of

Moira's foiled attempts to settle on a brawn!

Well, maybe just a little.

She turned on the beacon, then feeling a little smug, activated the rest

of the landing sequence, bringing up the pad lights and guidance monitors,

then hooking in the AI and letting it know it needed to talk to Moira's

navigational system. She hadn't known how to do all that, the last time Moira

was here. Moira'd had to set down with no help at all.

She leaned forward for the benefit of the mike. "All clear and ready to

engage landing sequence, Moira. Uh, what did you bring me? Over,"

"Oh, you bright little penny!" Moira exclaimed, her voice brimming with

delight. "You've got the whole system up! You have been learning things since

I was here last! Thank you, dear, and you'll find out what I brought when I

get down there. Over and out."

Oh well, she had tried. She jumped down from her stool, letting the AI

that ran the house and external systems take over the job of bringing the

brainship in. Or rather, giving the brainship the information she needed to

bring herself in; Moira never handed over her helm to anyone if she had a

choice in the matter. That was part of the problem she'd had with keeping

brawns. She didn't trust them at the helm, and let them know that. Ari, in

particular, had been less than amused with her attitude and had actually tried

to disable her helm controls to prove he could pilot as well as she.

Now, the next decision: should she suit up and fetch Mum and Dad? It was no

use trying to get them on the com; they probably had their suit-speakers off.

Even though they weren't supposed to do that. And this wasn't an emergency;

they would be decidedly annoyed if she buzzed in on them, and they found out

it was just an unscheduled social call from a courier ship, even if it was

Moira. They might be more than annoyed if they were in the middle of something

important, like documenting a find or running an age assay, and she joggled

their elbows.

Moira didn't say it was important She wouldn't have talked about errant

brawns and birthday presents if what she carried was really, really

earth-shaking.

Tia glanced at the clock; it wasn't more than a half hour until lunch

break. If there was one thing that Pota Andropolous-Cade (Doctor of Science in

Bio-Forensics, Doctor of Xenology, Doctor of Archeology), and her husband

Braddon Maartens-Cade (Doctor of Science in Geology, Doctor of Physics in

Cosmology, Associate Degree in Archeology, and licensed Astrogator) had in

common, besides daughter Hypatia and their enduring, if absent-minded love for

each other, it was punctuality. At precisely oh seven hundred every 'morning',

no matter where they were, the Cades had breakfast together. At precisely

twelve hundred, they arrived at the dome for lunch together. The AI saw that

Hypatia had a snack at sixteen hundred. And at precisely nineteen hundred, the

Cades returned from the dig for dinner together.

So in thirty minutes, precisely, Pota and Braddon would be here. Moira

couldn't possibly land in less than twenty minutes. The visitor, or visitors;

there was no telling if there was someone on board besides the brawn, the

yet-un-met Tomas, would not have long to wait.

She trotted around the living room of the dome; picking up her books and

puzzles, straightening the pillows on the sofa, turning on lights and the

holoscape of waving blue trees by a green lagoon on Mycon, where her parents

had met. She told the kitchen to start coffee, overriding the lunch program to

instruct it to make selection V-l, a setup program Braddon had logged for her

for munchies for visitors. She decided on music on her own; the Arkenstone

Suite, a lively synthesizer piece she thought matched the holo-mural.

There wasn't much else to do, so she sat down and waited, something she

had learned how to do very early. She thought she did it very well, actually.

There had certainly been enough of it in her life. The lot of an

archeologists' child was full of waiting, usually alone, and required her to

be mostly self-sufficient.

She had never had playmates or been around very many children of her own

age. Usually Mum and Dad were alone on a dig, for they specialized in Class

One Evaluation sites; when they weren't, it was usually on a Class Two dig,

Exploratory. Never a Class Three Excavation dig, with hundreds of people and

their families. It wasn't often that the other scientists her parents' age on

a Class Two dig had children younger than their teens. And even those were

usually away somewhere at school.

She knew that other people thought that the Cades were eccentric for

bringing their daughter with them on every dig, especially so young a child.

Most parents with a remote job to do left their offspring with relatives or

sent them to boarding schools. Tia listened to the adults around her, who

usually spoke as if she couldn't understand what they were talking about She

learned a great deal that way; probably more even than her Mum and Dad

suspected.

One of the things she overheard, quite frequently in fact, was that she

seemed like something of an afterthought. Or perhaps an 'accident', she'd

overheard that before, too.

She knew very well what was meant by the 'afterthought or accident'

comment. The last time someone had said that, she'd decided that she'd heard

it often enough.

It had been at a reception, following the reading of several scientific

papers. She'd marched straight up to the lady in question and had informed her

solemnly that she, Tia, had been planned very carefully, thank you. That

Braddon and Pota had determined that their careers would be secure just about

when Pota's biological clock had the last few seconds on it, and that was when

they would have one, singular, female child. Herself. Hypatia. Planned from

the beginning. From the leave-time to give birth to the way she had been

brought on each assignment; from the pressure-bubble glovebox that had served

as her cradle until she could crawl, to the pressure-tent that became a crib,

to the kind of AI that would best perform the dual functions of tutor and

guardian.

The lady in question, red-faced, hadn't known what to say. Her escort

had tried to laugh it away, telling her that the 'child' was just parroting

what she'd overheard and couldn't possibly understand any of it.

Whereupon Tia, well-versed in the ethnological habits, including

courtship and mating, of four separate sapient species, including homo sap.,

had proceeded to prove that he was wrong.

Then, while the escort was still spluttering, she had turned back to the

original offender and informed her, with earnest sincerity, that she had

better think about having her children soon, too, since it was obvious that

she couldn't have much more time before menopause.

Tia had, quite literally, silenced that section of the room. When

reproached later for her behavior by the host of the party, Tia had been

completely unrepentant "She was being rude and nasty," Tia had said. When the

host protested that the remark hadn't been meant for her, Tia had replied,

"Then she shouldn't have said it so loudly that everyone else laughed. And

besides," she had continued with inexorable logic, "being rude about someone

is worse than being rude to them."

Braddon, summoned to deal with his erring daughter, had shrugged

casually and said only, "I warned you. And you didn't believe me."

Though exactly what it was Dad had warned Doctor Julius about, Tia never

discovered.

The remarks about being 'unplanned' or an 'accident' stopped, at least

in her presence, but people still seemed concerned that she was 'too

precocious', and that she had no one of her own age to socialize with.

But the fact was that Tia simply didn't care that she had no other

children to play with. She had the best lessons in the known universe, via the

database; she had the AI to talk to. She had plenty of things to play with and

lots of freedom to do what she wanted, once lessons were done. And most of

all, she had Mum and Dad, who spent hours more with her than most people spent

with their children. She knew that, because both the statistics in the books

she had read on childcare and the Socrates, the AI that traveled with them

everywhere, told her so. They were never boring, and they always talked to her

as if she was grown up. If she didn't understand something, all she had to do

was tell them and they would backtrack and explain until she did. When they

weren't doing something that meant they needed all their concentration, they

encouraged her to come out to the digs with them when her lessons were over.

She hadn't ever heard of too many children who got to be with their parents at

work.

If anything, sometimes Mum and Dad explained a little too much. She

distinctly remembered the time that she started asking "Why?" to everything.

Socrates told her that "Why?" was a stage all children went through, mostly to

get attention. But Pota and Braddon had taken her literally ...

The AI told her not long ago that her "Why?" period might have been the

shortest on record, because Mum and Dad answered every "Why?" in detail. And

made sure she understood, so that she wouldn't ask that particular "Why?"

again.

After a month, "Why?" wasn't fun anymore, and she went on to other

things.

She really didn't miss other children at all. Most of the time when

she'd encountered them, it had been with the wary feeling of an anthropologist

approaching a new and potentially dangerous species. The feeling seemed to be

mutual. And so for, other children had proven to be rather boring creatures.

Their interests and their worlds were very narrow, their vocabulary a fraction

of Tia's. Most of them hadn't the faintest idea of how to play chess, for

instance.

Mum had a story she told at parties about how Tia, at the age of two,

had stunned an overly effusive professorial spouse into absolute silence.

There had been a chess set, a lovely antique, up on one of the tables just out

of Tia's reach. She had stared longingly at it for nearly half an hour before

the lady noticed what she was looking at.

Tia remembered that incident quite well, too. The lady had picked up an

intricately carved knight and waggled it at her. "See the horsie?" she had

gushed. "Isn't it a pretty horsie?"

Tia's sense of fitness had been outraged, and that wasn't all. Her

intelligence had been insulted, and she was very well aware of it. She had

stood up, very straight, and looked the lady right in the eye. "Is not a

horsie," she had announced, coldly and clearly. "Is a knight. It moves like

the letter L. And Mum says it is piece most often sacri- sacer- sacra-"

Mum had come up by then, as she grew red-faced, trying to remember how

to say the word she wanted. "Sacrificed?" Mum had asked, helpfully. "It means

'given up'."

Beaming with gratitude, Tia had nodded. "Most often given up after the

pawn." Then she glared at the lady. "Which is not a little man!"

The lady had retired to a corner and did not emerge while Tia and her

parents were there, although her Mum's superior had then taken down the set

and challenged Tia to a game. He had won, of course, but she had at least

shown she really knew how to play. He had been impressed and intrigued, and

had taken her out on the porch to point out various species of birds at the

feeders there.

She couldn't help but think that she affected grownups in only two ways.

They were either delighted by her, or scandalized by her. Moira was among the

'delighted' sort, though most of her brawns hadn't been. Charlie had, though,

which was why she had thought that he just might be the one to stay with the

brainship. He actually seemed to enjoy the fact that she could beat him at

chess. She sighed. Probably this new brawn would be of the other sort.

Not that it really mattered how she affected adults. She didn't see that

many of them, and then it was never for very long. Though it was important to

impress Mum's and Dad's superiors in a positive sense. She at least knew that

much now.

"Your visitor is at the airlock," said the AI, breaking in on her

thoughts. "His name is Tomas. While he is cycling, Moira would like you to

have me turn on the ground-based radio link so that she can join the

conversation."

"Go ahead, Socrates," she told the AI. That was the problem with AIs; if

they didn't already have instructions, you had to tell them to do something

before they would, where a shell-person would just do it if it made sense.

"Tomas has your birthday present," Moira said, a moment later. "I hope you

like it."

"You mean, you hope I like him," she replied shrewdly. "You hope I don't

scare him."

"Let's say I use you as a kind of litmus test, all right?" Moira

admitted. "And, darling, Charlie really did fall in love with a

ground-pounder. Even I could see he wanted to be with her more than he wanted

space." She sighed. "It was really awfully romantic; you don't see old-style

love at first sight anymore. Michiko is such a charming little thing. I really

can't blame him. And it's partly your fault, dear. He was so taken with you

that all he could talk about was how he wanted children just like you. Well,

anyway, she persuaded Admin to find him a ground job, and they traded me Tomas

for him, with no fine, because it wasn't my fault this time."

"It's going to take you forever to buy out of those fines for bouncing

brawns," Tia began, when the inner airlock door cycled, and a pressure-suited

person came through, holding a box and his helmet.

Tia frowned at seeing the helmet; he'd taken it off in the lock, once

the pressure was equalized. That wasn't a good idea, because locks had been

known to blow, especially old ones like the Class One digs had. So already he

was one in the minus column as far as Tia was concerned. But he had a nice

face, with kind eyes, and that wasn't so bad; a round, tanned face, with curly

black hair and bright brown eyes, and a wide mouth that didn't have those

tense lines at the corners that Ari'd had. So that was one in the plus column.

He came out even so far.

"Hello, Tomas," she said, neutrally. "You shouldn't take your helmet off

in the lock, you know, you should wait until the interior door cycles."

"She's right, Tomas," Moira piped up from the com console. "These Class

One digs always get the last pick of equipment. All of it is old, and some of

it isn't reliable. Door seals blow all the time."

"It blew last month, when I came in," Tia added helpfully. "It took Mum

hours to install the new seal, and she's not altogether happy with it." Tomas'

eyes were wide with surprise, and he was clearly taken aback. He had probably

intended to ask her where her parents were. He had not expected to be greeted

by a lecture on pressure-suit safety.

"Oh," was all he could say. "Ah, thank you. I will remember that in the

future."

"You're welcome," she replied. "Mum and Dad are at the dig; I'm sorry

they weren't here to meet you."

"I ought to make proper introductions," Moira said from the console.

"Tomas, this is Hypatia Cade. Her mother is Doctor Pota Andropolous-Cade and

her father is Doctor Braddon Maartens-Cade. Tia, this is Tomas

Delacorte-Ibanez."

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Tomas," she replied with careful

formality. "Mum and Dad will be here in," she glanced at her wrist-chrono,

"ten minutes. In the meantime, there is fresh coffee, and may I offer you

anything to eat?"

Once again, he was taken aback. "Coffee, please," he replied after a

moment. "If you would be so kind."

She fetched it from the kitchen; by the time she returned with the cup

balanced in one hand and the refreshments in the other, he had removed his

suit. She had to admit that he did look very handsome in the skintight

ship-suit he wore beneath it. But then, all of Moira's brawns had been

good-looking. That was part of the problem; she tended to pick brawns on the

basis of looks first and personality second.

He accepted the coffee and food from her gravely, and a little warily,

for all the world as if he had decided to treat her as some kind of new,

unknown sentient. She tried not to giggle.

"That is a very unusual name that you were given," he said, after an

awkward pause. "Hypatia, is it?"

"Yes," she said, "I was named for the first and only female librarian of

the Great Library at Alexandria on Terra. She was also the last librarian

there."

His eyes showed some recognition of the names at least. So he wasn't

completely ignorant of history, the way Julio had been. "Ah. That would have

been when the Romans burned it, in the time of Cleopatra, " he began. She

interrupted him with a shake of her head.

"No, the library wasn't destroyed then, not at all, not even close. It

persisted as a famous library into the day of Constantine," she continued,

warming to her favorite story, reciting it exactly as Pota had told it to her,

as it was written in the history database. "It was when Hypatia was the

librarian that a pack of unwashed Christian fanatics stormed it, led by some

people who called themselves prophets and holy men, intending to burn it to

the ground because it contained 'pagan books, lies, and heresies'. When

Hypatia tried to stop them, she was murdered, stoned to death, then trampled."

"Oh," Tomas said weakly, the wind taken quite out of his sails. He

seemed to be searching for something to say, and evidently chose the first

thing that sprang to mind. "Uh, why did you call them 'unwashed Christian

fanatics?'"

"Because they were," she replied impatiently. "They were fanatics, and

most of them were stylites and other hermits who made a point of not ever

bathing because taking baths was Roman and pagan and not taking baths was

Christian and mortifying the flesh." She sniffed. "I suppose it didn't matter

to them that it was also giving them fleas and making them smell, I shan't

even mention the disease!"

"I don't imagine that ever entered their minds." Tomas said carefully.

"Anyway, I think Hypatia was very brave, but she could have been a

little smarter," Tia concluded. "I don't think I would have stood there to let

them throw stones at me; I would have run away or locked the door or

something."

Tomas smiled unexpectedly; he had a lovely smile, very white teeth in

his darkly tanned face. "Well, maybe she didn't have much choice," he said. "I

expect that by the time she realized she wasn't going to be able to stop those

people, it was too late to get away."

Tia nodded, slowly, considering the ancient Alexandrian garments, how

cumbersome they were and how difficult to run in. "I think you're right," she

agreed. "I would hate to think that the librarian was stupid."

He laughed at that. "You mean you'd hate to think that the great lady

you were named for was stupid," he teased. "And I don't blame you. It's much

nicer to be named for someone who was brave and heroic on purpose than someone

people think was a hero just because she was too dense to get out of the way

of trouble!"

Tia had to laugh at that, and right then was when she decided that she

was going to like Tomas. He hadn't quite known what to make of her at first,

but he'd settled down nicely and was treating her quite like an intelligent

sentient now.

Evidently Moira had decided the same thing, for when she spoke, her

voice sounded much less anxious.

"Tomas, aren't you forgetting? You brought Tia her late birthday

present."

"I certainly did forget!" he exclaimed. "I do beg your pardon, Tia!"

He handed her the box he had brought, and she controlled herself very

well, taking it from him politely, and not grabbing like a rude child would

have. "Thank you, Moira," she said to the com console. "I don't mind that it's

late. It's kind of like getting my birthday all over again this way."

"You are just too civilized for your own good, dear," Moira giggled.

"Well, go ahead, open it!"

She did, carefully undoing the fastenings of the rather plain box and

exposing bright-colored wrapping beneath. The wrapped package within was

odd-shaped, lumpy. She couldn't stand it any longer; she tore into the present

just like any other child.

"Oh!" she exclaimed when she revealed her prize, for once caught without

a word, holding him up to the light.

"Do you like it?" Moira asked anxiously. "I mean, I know you asked, but

you grow so fast, I was afraid you'd have outgrown him by now."

"I love him!" Tia exclaimed, hugging the bright blue bear suddenly,

reveling in the soft fur against her cheek. "Oh Moira, I just love him!"

"Well, it was quite a trick to find him, let me tell you," Moira

replied, her voice sounding very relieved, as Tomas grinned even wider. "You

people move around so much. I had to find a teddy bear that would take

repeated decontam procedures, one that would stand up to about anything

quarantine could hand out And it's hard to find bears at all, they seem to

have gone right out of style. You don't mind that he's blue?"

"I like blue," she said happily.

"And you like him fuzzy? That was Tomas' idea."

"Thank you, Tomas," she told the brawn, who beamed. "He feels

wonderful."

"I had a fuzzy dog when I was your age," he replied. "When Moira told me

that you wanted a bear like the one she had before she went into her shell, I

thought this fellow felt better than the smooth bears."

He leaned down confidentially, and for a moment Tia was afraid that he

was going to be patronizing just because she'd gone so enthusiastic over the

toy.

"I have to tell you the truth, Tia, I really enjoyed digging into all

those toy shops," he whispered. "A lot of that stuff is wasted on children. I

found some logic puzzles you just wouldn't believe and a set of magic tricks I

couldn't resist, and I'm afraid I spent far too much money on spaceship

models."

She giggled. "I won't tell if you don't," she replied, in a

conspiratorial whisper.

"Pota and Braddon are in the airlock," Socrates interrupted. "Shall I

order the kitchen to make lunch now?"

"So why exactly are you here?" Tomas asked, after all the initial topics

of conversation had been exhausted, and the subject turned, inevitably, to

Pota and Braddon's work. He gestured at the landscape beyond the viewport;

spectacular mountains, many times taller than anything found on Terra or any

other inhabited planet. This little ball of rock with a thin skin of dirt was

much like the wilder parts of Mars before it had been terraformed, and had a

sky so dark at midday that the sun shared the sky with the stars. "I wouldn't

expect to find much of anything out there for an archeologist, it's the next

thing to airless, after all. The scenery is amazing, but that's no reason to

stay here."

Braddon chuckled, the generous mouth in his lantern-jawed face widening

in a smile, and Tia hid a grin. Whether or not Tomas knew it, he had just

triggered her Dad's lecture mechanism. Fortunately, Braddon had a gift for

lecturing. He was always a popular speaker whenever he could be tempted to go

to conferences.

"No one expected to find anything on planets like this one, Tomas,"

Braddon replied, leaning back against the supporting cushions of the sofa and

tucking his hands behind his head. "That's why the Salomon-Kildaire culture is

so intriguing. James Salomon and Tory Kildaire discovered the first buildings

on the fourth moon of Beta Orianis Three, and there have never been any

verifiable artifacts uncovered in what you and I would call 'normal'

conditions. Virtually every find has been on airless or near-airless bodies.

Pota and I have excavated over a dozen sites, doing the Class One studies, and

they're all like this one."

Tomas glanced out the viewport again. "Surely that implies that they

were, "

"Space-going, yes," Pota supplied, nodding her head so that her

gray-brown curls vibrated. "I don't think there's any doubt of it. Although

we've never found any trace of whatever it was they used to move them from

colony to colony, but that isn't the real mystery."

Braddon gestured agreement. "The real mystery is that they never seem to

have set up anything permanent. They never seem to have spent more than a few

decades in any one place. No one knows why they left, or why they came here in

the first place."

Tomas laughed. "They seem to have hopped planets as often as you two,"

he said. "Perhaps they were simply doing what you are doing, excavating an

earlier culture and following it across the stars."

Braddon exclaimed in mock horror. "Please!" he said. "Don't even think

that!"

Pota only laughed. "If they had been, we'd have found signs of that,"

she told both of them, tapping Braddon's knee in playful admonition. "After

all, as bleak as these places are, they preserve things wonderfully. If the

EsKays had been archeologists, we'd have found the standard tools of the

trade. We break and wear out brushes and digging tools all the time, and just

leave them in our discard piles. They would have done the same. No matter how

you try to alter it, there are only so many ways you can make a brush or a

trowel."

"There would be bad castings," Tia piped up. "You throw out bad castings

all the time, Mum; if they were archeologists, we'd find a pile of bad

castings somewhere."

"Bless me, Tia's right," Braddon nodded. "There you are, Tomas;

irrefutable proof."

"Good enough for me," Tomas replied, good naturedly.

"And if that idea was true, there also ought to be signs of the earlier

culture, shouldn't there?" Moira asked. "And you've never found anything mixed

in with the EsKay artifacts."

"Exactly so," Pota replied, and smiled. "And so, Tomas, you see how

easily an archeologist's theories can be disposed of."

"Then I'm going to be thankful to be Moira's partner," Tomas said

gracefully, "and leave all the theorizing to better heads than mine."

After a while, the talk turned to the doings of the Institute, and both

professional and personal news of Pota and Braddon's friends and rivals. Tia

glanced at the clock again; it was long past time when her parents would have

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y#THESHIPWHOSEARCHEDBy:AnneMcCaffreyCopyright1992Version1.1Thisisaworkoffiction.Allthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthisbookarefictional,andanyresemblancetorealpeopleorincidentsispurelycoincidental.Copyright#1992byBillFawcettandAssociatesAllrightsreserved,includingtherighttoreproducethisbookportions...

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Anne McCaffrey - Ship 3 - The Ship Who Searched

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