“Look at the signal,” he muttered. “It’s going crazy.”
“You mean, I’m causing it to go crazy?” Cidra’s mouth felt very dry.
“Or something you’ve got on you. I don’t understand. These things are virtually fail-proof.”
“Desma says mechanical stuff is always breaking down on Renaissance.”
“Empty your pockets. Hurry!”
She reached inside her shirt, and the first thing her hand touched was the stone shard. Slowly, with a feeling of doom, she brought it out and held it toward the directional device.
“Sweet reeting hell.” Severance jerked the shard from her hand and waved it back and forth across the surface of the device.
“I’m sorry, Severance.” Cidra stood in dismay, bearing the full weight of a heavy guilt. “I didn’t realize it would cause trouble.”
He tossed the shard as far as he could into the undergrowth.
“Neither did I, although I suppose we should have made an educated guess on the subject. I wonder what it was about that slice of eggshell that could screw up the signal on this thing.”
“How does it read now?”
“It says the skimmer is west of us and not very close. We’ve got a long walk ahead.” He looked up and started to say something else.
Cidra held up her palm. “Don’t say it. I’ll say it. Let’s get going.”
A reluctant smile edged Severance’s mouth. “You’re learning.” He started forward with Cidra close behind.
They hadn’t gone more than a few paces when Cidra saw the glint of black stone. “Severance, there’s the shard. But I thought you threw it much farther.”
He turned to glance back. “I did. And I threw it in a different direction. That’s not the shard.” Cautiously he used the knife to push aside the heavy mass of creeping vines. A black, curving surface glinted in the dappled light.
“Sweet Harmony in hell. It looks like a giant version of one of the stones.”
“Severance, we’ve got to get out of here!” Cidra tugged at him frantically, but he shook off her hands. “If it’s another egg, it’s a huge one. Anything that hatches from that thing isn’t going to be stopped very easily. You saw how much of the pulser charge it took to destroy the little eggs.”
“If it’s an egg, it’s already cracked.”
“What?” She peered around his shoulder to see what he was looking at. The huge sphere was crumpled and jagged on one side, revealing a gaping hole. Inside there was only darkness. Cidra edged back, trying to pull Severance with her. Everything within her that had felt wrong about the eggs was reacting violently to this discovery.
“It’s not made of the same material as the egg, although it’s the same color.” Severance touched the black surface. “It’s a metal of some kind. Like nothing I’ve ever seen.” He dug out the quartzflash and shined it into the dark hole. He sucked in his breath. “It’s a ship, Cidra. Some kind of vehicle. It’s got to be!”
She stared at the array of mechanisms revealed in the light of the flash. The shapes were oddly distorted to her eyes, unfamiliar and strange. “Not a human ship.”
“You can say that again.” Severance stepped closer, clearly fascinated. “Not a Ghost ship, either. At least nothing in here appears designed to fit one of the creatures we saw in that history lesson we got in the safehold. Their hands were similar to ours, and anything mechanical they built would have had similar gripping surfaces. The height of everything is wrong too. Some of it’s too high and some of it’s too low. Everything’s made out of this same black metal.”
“Severance, it looks too much like one of those eggs. The same color, the same shape, and it was that shard in my pocket that drew us here. I told you those blue things were alien to this planet. Let’s get out of here.”
But he was already moving closer to the gaping black hole. It occurred to Cidra that any man with Severance’s natural aptitude for keeping machines in working order was probably going to be overcome with a fascination for this alien gadget. “Whatever was once in this thing is long gone, Cidra. If it survived the crash, it probably stepped outside and became a meal for one of the natives.”
“No,” she said with quiet certainty. “First it carried its eggs into the safehold. Maybe it was following the same mind call we followed. Maybe the call draws anything above a certain level of intelligence to it. Perhaps that’s how it screens out the rest of the jungle life. It was meant as a record for another intelligent species to find. Whatever was in this ship must have found it. The safehold probably looked like a good place to leave the eggs.”
“You’re assuming that the ship and whatever was inside was alien to Stanza Nine.”
“I know it was,” Cidra said stubbornly. “There’s something wrong about it, I keep telling you.”
“It will take a full-scale scientific investigation to find out the truth. Perhaps another intelligent species developed on this planet.”
“No.”
He waved the quartzflash around inside the ship. “You can’t be sure of that, Cidra.”
“Severance, please come away from there. After what I saw of those eggs, we’ve got to assume that the ship is dangerous. Maybe it’s protected the way the eggs were.”
“Just a minute. I want to get a closer look at this stuff. Doesn’t look like this metal has had the corrosion damage most metal gets on Renaissance.” He whistled soundlessly between his teeth, his eyes gleaming with barely suppressed excitement. “We’ve got to be able to find this ship again.” Severance punched a code into the directional indicator. “Between this thing and the safehold, I’m going to make enough credit to launch Severance Pay, Ltd. in a big way.”
“Is that all you can think about? Selling this information? You’ve got a one-track mind, Teague Severance! This is the find of the century, ultimately maybe far more significant than the safehold. And all you can talk about is how much you’ll get when you sell the location.”
“Yeah, well, a man has to keep his eye on the main chance.” He edged closer, shining the flash around the edge of the jagged metal. Suddenly they heard a sharp hiss, and something with a long tail and four short legs leapt from the darkness. Severance ducked, and the disturbed inhabitant of the ship disappeared into the trees.
