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FIFTEEN

The old Aighor ship was silent and cold. Water dripped softly in the sea-tanks that circumnavigated the midriff, and a small motor in the engine sentry systems whined briefly, but the usual sounds of ship life were absent. The old weapons storage chambers were littered with equipment, and scaffoldings had been set up along the sixty-meter inboard bulkhead, but there was no one to put them to use.

Two kilometers outside the ship, the Waunters inspected their last two weeks' work. The lander swung in a slow, lazy arc around the green hulk. Its occupants watched the screens in a kind of stupor.

"We should go back inside. It's all done," Oomalo said.

"Why even bother to do maintenance?" Alae asked. "What will we do when we get back? Nobody's commissioned us. We're not listeners unless we have a commission."

"We don't need one. Nothing's wrong with the ship. Systems will last another two hundred years before they incur any expense."

"Two hundred years," Alae said. "I don't think I want to live that long."

"Wait until we get back to routine. We can do basic research. We're free-lance, remember. We can peddle information without a commission."

Alae nodded absently. "I'd like to shift the quarters around. Open up new rooms and move into them. Have fresh surroundings. The old rooms make my guts ache."

Oomalo agreed to that. "If nothing else," he said, "you can help me explore and record the ship. There's an awful lot left to do."

"Nothing useful," she said. "Nothing we can sell."

"Probably not. The Crocerians wouldn't have sold it to us if they thought anything unusual was in it. But who knows?"

"Every ten years, for the next two hundred years, we'll go out and inspect the ship all around, plant new monitors on the hull, live our lives, and nothing will happen. Does that sound like much of a life to you?"

"We could always go back, sell the ship now. I'm sure we could get a good price for it. It's a good ship."

"Big. Like a world. I've lived in it too long to be happy where other people are. The quiet gets in my blood, settles the waves. I'll be okay. Let's go back and start shifting things around."

"That's better," Oomalo said. "Back to routine. We'll start listening on our own tomorrow."

"Back to routine," Alae said slowly. "Peace."

 

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Framed