There were times when he questioned the work himself. Their assignment was to seek out potential help, however limited. The sum total of all such studies would be rendered meaningless by a final Amplitur victory. There were too many systems to be searched.
The presence of nonintelligent life could be duly noted and recorded from orbit, much to the dismay of Hivistahm biologists eager to examine and collect specimens from every new ecosystem.Ĭaldaq sympathized with his scientific staff, but time could not be allotted to pure research. Usually it was only necessary to execute a single slow equatorial and a backup circumpolar to establish that a world was uninhabited. In the unlikely event its location was crossed by astronomers or other observers on the ground it would not occlude any stars, thereby preventing detection. Masking would be engaged so that they could not be observed from the surface. Whether the subject to be studied was a gas giant, a moon thereof, or a smaller independent world, the ship would assume an orbit a safe several planetary diameters out. Upon reaching a new system and emerging into real space, a well-defined procedure was followed. There was no hesitancy in the orders he issued, however, and the ship sped on through Underspace devoid of troubles mechanical or psychological. Movements were jerky and swift, not smooth like those of a Hivistahm or languorous in the manner of the Wais. The extremities of a Massood were in constant motion: twitching, curling, quivering. But being Massood, he appeared naturally jumpy and nervous to others, and so it was impossible for any but members of his own kind to tell when he was feeling uneasy. It was not easy being less experienced than many of those he was expected to command. He rarely showed the uncertainty he felt. So every system that boasted planets had to be closely inspected, lest a potentially useful… or dangerous… world be overlooked. Among the allies of the Amplitur, for example, was a race of methane-breathers. Nor could the possibility of encountering even more exotic sentient types be ruled out. Then there were the amphibious Lepar, and another intelligent but not yet mature species who extracted all their oxygen directly from water. There were many reasons why this was so, not the least of them being that the presence of an oxynitro atmosphere was not necessarily a prerequisite for the development of intelligence, the heliox-breathing Chirinaldo being the most prominent exception to the usual but far from absolute atmospheric rule. Trying to determine from aboard a ship in Underspace which were likely to support life was an impossibility. Isolating suns likely to have planets was difficult enough. Destinations had been determined by the astronomers of the Weave long before the ship had been readied for departure. One thing that did not have to be debated was course.
There were frequent discussions of routines and objectives, with a Wais always present to clarify and explain nuances that might escape the electronic translators.
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