objects, or for signals only?”
“For objects.”
“Then, to what destinations?”
“I do not know. But the energy drain says that it must have been many lightyears.”
As Brachis was giving his testimony, new individual components had flown in silently to join the Tinker Composite. Now it bulked much larger than a human. There was a fluttering of tiny purple-black wings, and then a sibilant facsimile of human speech came again through the Link. “We would like the records, if you please. We wish to attempt our own analysis of possible destinations. And we wish to know more about the nature of the project you term Operation Morgan. ”
“Very well. But for that, I will with your permission defer to Commander Mondrian. My own records will be sent to you at once, and I will of course be available to answer any further questions.” Luther Brachis stepped back, ceding the spotlight to Esro Mondrian.
His companion had been performing his own close inspection of the Ambassadors. There was no chance of recognizing any particular assembly of Tinker Composites, but the Angels and Pipe-Rillas both had stability of structure. It was possible that he had met one of them before, on their own home worlds. In any case, he knew he would have to talk right past Dougal MacDougal if he hoped for any kind of sympathetic response from the alien Ambassadors.
“My name is Esro Mondrian. I am Chief of Boundary Survey security. My territory begins half a lightyear from Sol, where it meets the region controlled by Commander Brachis. It extends all the way out to, and includes, the Perimeter. Between us, Commander Brachis and I divide the responsibility for human species security. However, Operation Morgan was my initiative and its failure is my responsibility, not his.
“I have worked in the past with each of your own local monitoring groups, and I have visited your home systems. We are fortunate, all our species, in that we live in stable, civilized regions, where there are few unknown dangers. But out on the Perimeter, fifty lightyears and more from Sol, there are no such guarantees.”
Down in the sunken atrium in front of Mondrian there was an odd grunting sound. It was Dougal MacDougal, clearing his throat. He did not speak, but he did not need to. Mondrian understood the message. Get on with it, man. The Ambassadors didn’t link in from halfway to the Perimeter just to hear platitudes from you.
And yet they had to hear this, whether MacDougal liked it or not. Esro Mondrian hurried on.
“Out on the Perimeter, distances are enormous. But our resources to monitor what is happening out there are limited, and operating uncertainties are large. A few years ago I realized that we were losing ground. The Perimeter constantly increases in size, but our capability was not growing with it. We had to have some new type of monitoring instrument—one that could function with minimal support from the home bases, and also one that was tougher and more flexible than anything that we could make with the pan inorganica brains. It was while I was wrestling with that problem, and evaluating alternatives—none of them satisfactory—that I was approached by a scientist, Livia Morgan. She offered an intriguing prospect. She could, she claimed, develop symbiotic forms that combined organic and inorganic components. By the end of our first meeting, I was convinced that what she had might be perfect for our needs.” Mondrian nodded at one of the figures in front of him. “I also knew of at least one example, sufficient to prove that such a blend of organic with inorganic was not impossible.”
The Angel acknowledged the reference with a wave of blue-green fronds. It was itself a symbiotic life-form, discovered a century and a half earlier when the expanding wave-front of the Perimeter had reached the star Capella and the planets around it. The visible part of the Angel was the Chassel-Rose, slow-moving, mindless, and wholly vegetable. Shielded
“For objects.”
“Then, to what destinations?”
“I do not know. But the energy drain says that it must have been many lightyears.”
As Brachis was giving his testimony, new individual components had flown in silently to join the Tinker Composite. Now it bulked much larger than a human. There was a fluttering of tiny purple-black wings, and then a sibilant facsimile of human speech came again through the Link. “We would like the records, if you please. We wish to attempt our own analysis of possible destinations. And we wish to know more about the nature of the project you term Operation Morgan. ”
“Very well. But for that, I will with your permission defer to Commander Mondrian. My own records will be sent to you at once, and I will of course be available to answer any further questions.” Luther Brachis stepped back, ceding the spotlight to Esro Mondrian.
His companion had been performing his own close inspection of the Ambassadors. There was no chance of recognizing any particular assembly of Tinker Composites, but the Angels and Pipe-Rillas both had stability of structure. It was possible that he had met one of them before, on their own home worlds. In any case, he knew he would have to talk right past Dougal MacDougal if he hoped for any kind of sympathetic response from the alien Ambassadors.
“My name is Esro Mondrian. I am Chief of Boundary Survey security. My territory begins half a lightyear from Sol, where it meets the region controlled by Commander Brachis. It extends all the way out to, and includes, the Perimeter. Between us, Commander Brachis and I divide the responsibility for human species security. However, Operation Morgan was my initiative and its failure is my responsibility, not his.
“I have worked in the past with each of your own local monitoring groups, and I have visited your home systems. We are fortunate, all our species, in that we live in stable, civilized regions, where there are few unknown dangers. But out on the Perimeter, fifty lightyears and more from Sol, there are no such guarantees.”
Down in the sunken atrium in front of Mondrian there was an odd grunting sound. It was Dougal MacDougal, clearing his throat. He did not speak, but he did not need to. Mondrian understood the message. Get on with it, man. The Ambassadors didn’t link in from halfway to the Perimeter just to hear platitudes from you.
And yet they had to hear this, whether MacDougal liked it or not. Esro Mondrian hurried on.
“Out on the Perimeter, distances are enormous. But our resources to monitor what is happening out there are limited, and operating uncertainties are large. A few years ago I realized that we were losing ground. The Perimeter constantly increases in size, but our capability was not growing with it. We had to have some new type of monitoring instrument—one that could function with minimal support from the home bases, and also one that was tougher and more flexible than anything that we could make with the pan inorganica brains. It was while I was wrestling with that problem, and evaluating alternatives—none of them satisfactory—that I was approached by a scientist, Livia Morgan. She offered an intriguing prospect. She could, she claimed, develop symbiotic forms that combined organic and inorganic components. By the end of our first meeting, I was convinced that what she had might be perfect for our needs.” Mondrian nodded at one of the figures in front of him. “I also knew of at least one example, sufficient to prove that such a blend of organic with inorganic was not impossible.”
The Angel acknowledged the reference with a wave of blue-green fronds. It was itself a symbiotic life-form, discovered a century and a half earlier when the expanding wave-front of the Perimeter had reached the star Capella and the planets around it. The visible part of the Angel was the Chassel-Rose, slow-moving, mindless, and wholly vegetable. Shielded