
victory-emblems. These nobles all kept their heads pointed along the captain's
axis (an old saying ran: "the captain's head is always up!"), whereas Smith
was offset 90 degrees clockwise, legs straight, present-ing a broad target.
(This he did for the same reason a man under acceleration would bow or kneel;
a posture where one could not move well to defend oneself showed submission.)
Smith could see the stranger's ship in the viewing well. She was a slim and
handsome craft, built along classical lines, an old, a very old design, of
such craftsmanship as was rarely seen today. She was sturdy: built for high
accelerations, and proudly bearing long thin structures forward of antennae of
a type that indicated fearlessly loud and long-range radar. The engine block
was far aft on a very long and graceful insulation shaft. The craft had
evidently been made in days when the safety of the engine serfs still was a
concern.
Her lines were sleek. (Not, Smith thought secretly, like Procrustes, whose low
speed and lack of spin allowed her to grow many modules, ugly extrusions, and
asymmetric protu-berances.)
But the stranger's ship was old. Rust, and ice from frozen oxygen, stained the
hull where seals had failed.
Yet she still emitted, on radio, the cheerful welcome-code. Merry
green-and-red running lights were still lit. Microwave detectors showed
radiations from the aft section of her hull, which might still be inhabited,
even though the fore sections were cold and silent. Numbers and pictoglyphs
flickered on a small screen to one side of the main image, showing telemetry
and specific readings.
Smith studied the cylinder's radius and rate of spin. He calculated, and then
he said, "Glorious Captain, the lowest deck of the stranger ship has
centrifugal acceleration of exactly 32 feet per second per second."
The officers looked eye to eye, hissing with surprise.
The chancellor nodded the gaudy plume that grew from his hair and eyebrows.
"This number has ancient significance! Some of the older orders of eremites
still use it. They claim that it provides the best weight for our bones.
Perhaps this is a religious ship."
One of the younger knights, a thin, dapple-bellied piebald wearing silk
speed-wings running from his wrists to ankles, now spoke up: "Great Captain,
perhaps she is an Earth ship, inhabited by machine intelligences ... or
ghosts!"
The other nobles opened their fans, and held them in front of their faces. If
no derisive smiles were seen, then there was no legal cause for duel. The
young knight might be illiter-ate, true, most young knights were, but the long
kick-talons he wore on his calves had famous names.
The captain said, "We are more concerned for the stranger's nobility, than her
... ah ... origin." There were a few smirks at that. A ship from Earth,
indeed! All the old horror-tales made it clear that nothing properly called
human was left on Earth, except, perhaps, as pets or specimens of the
machines. The Earthmind had never had much interest in space.
The chancellor said, "Those racks forward ..." (he pointed at what were
obviously antennae) "... may house weaponry, great Captain, or particle beam
weapons, if the stranger has force enough in her drive core to sustain a
weapon-grade power flow."
The captain looked toward Smith, "Concerning this ship's energy architecture,
Engineer, have you any feelings or intuitions?" She would not ask him for
"deductions" or "con-clusions," of course.
Smith felt grateful that she had not asked him directly to answer the
question; he was not obligated to contradict the chancellor's idiotic
assertions. Panicle beam indeed! The man had been pointing at a radio dish.
Very polite, the captain, very proper. Politeness was crit-ically important
aboard a crowded ship.
The captain was an hermaphrodite. An ancient law for-bade captains to marry
(or to take lowlife concubines) from crew aboard. The Captain's Wife must be
from off-ship, either as gift or conquest or to cement a friendly alliance.