STARSW1

STARSWARM

Jerry Pournelle

This novel will be published as a Jupiter Novel by TOR Books.

PART ONE

THE VOICE

But the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:

And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

I Kings 19:11-12

CHAPTER I

GWEN

Kip could never remember a time when he couldn't hear the Voice in his head. He could talk to it any time he wanted by thinking in a special way, and the Voice would always answer. It didn't matter when he called, or where he was. Kip was the only one in the whole world who could hear the Voice, and it had always said he should never tell anyone he could hear it.

For a long time Kip thought other people had their own Voice, but of course they didn't. He couldn't remember just when he had thought that out. He could never ask, of course, but grownups didn't act like they had Voices. They forgot things. Of course Kip forgot things too, but the Voice never forgot anything.

Kip never told anyone about the Voice, not even Uncle Mike. He told Uncle Mike everything else. There was no one else to tell things to, no one else to run to when he was hurt or frightened. He and Uncle Mike lived by themselves in a big wooden frame house across the wide graveled central field from the laboratory buildings of Starswarm Station. There were other people there, but the scientists were too busy to bother with a young boy, and there weren't any other children at the Station.

The household robots cooked and did most of the housework, but Uncle Mike had programmed them so that there was still work for Kip to do, because, he said, "A boy ought to learn to take care of himself and not have to depend on machines. Or other people."

Kip knew about families and mothers and fathers because he could watch the TV when Uncle Mike let him. He didn't get to watch very much, because he had so much to learn. Uncle Mike always told him that men weren't intended to live on Purgatory, and they had to learn early or the planet would kill them.

Kip knew what that meant. There was a big fence around Starswarm's buildings and yards, and even that couldn't keep everything out. Centaurs came looking for food in deep winter, and they'd eat anything, even dogs and people. Then there were the little furry things the scientists called by a long name, but everybody else called them haters because they hated everything they hadn't killed. The fences couldn't keep all the haters out when they swarmed, and then the men and dogs had to go out and kill the haters. There were other things, and Kip had to learn about all of them.

It wasn't a bad life for Kip even if he did wish he had someone to play with. When he was six, Uncle Mike taught him to shoot a pistol, but he couldn't touch it unless Uncle Mike was with him. Uncle Mike was a hunter, and he took Kip with him sometimes. Uncle Mike caught animals alive for the Station scientists. He never killed anything unless he had to. Of course on Purgatory he had to kill a lot of things because they would eat him, or the dogs, if he didn't, but Uncle Mike didn't hunt for fun, and he didn't like people who did.

There were always the dogs to play with, too. They had two whole teams of them, and there were usually puppies. The dogs were nice, and they understood a lot of what Kip said to them. They were almost as nice as other people. Even so, Kip sometimes felt lonesome, and he knew Uncle Mike was sorry about that, but they had to stay at Starswarm Station.

The TV showed Kip how other people lived. He could watch shows from Pearly Gates City, and everyone on TV lived in families. Sometimes they did very silly things. Kip asked his Voice about the people on TV, but the Voice wasn't always able to tell whether Kip had been watching entertainment shows or news from Pearly Gates, or even a documentary from Earth. Usually he could tell when the show came from Earth, though, because there were so many people there, and they had all kinds of marvelous things that no one on Purgatory had.

For a long time Kip thought his Voice was God, because the Voice always spoke in stern unemotional tones like Brother Joseph reading the lesson, and it used words Kip didn't understand. Besides, the Voice knew almost everything, and sometimes it could do strange things like bringing him a new Teddy Bear.

Kip had always had a Teddy Bear. He thought he could remember when Mommy gave him Teddy, and it was one of the few memories of Mommy that he had. Teddy went everywhere with Kip. He was hugged and crushed at night, and dragged in the dirt all day. Once, one of Mukky's new puppies got Teddy and chewed him. Mukky snapped at the puppy and growled at him a long time, and she whined because she was sorry until Kip told her it was all right and scratched her ears. Teddy had been a wreck, but Uncle Mike had fixed him. Over the years Uncle Mike changed Teddy's stuffing and patched him until he wasn't recognizable, but still he was Teddy.

Finally, though, Kip dropped Teddy into the wrong hole, and a firebrighter took him. Kip screamed, and although the dogs knew better they attacked the firebrighter because the dogs couldn't stand to hear human children crying. Mukky's puppy had to be killed, and Mukky was hurt, and firebrighter blood and guts got all over and inside Teddy. Not even Uncle Mike could do anything for him then. Uncle Mike asked Dr. Henderson, but no one knew any cure for the firebrighter smell, so they buried his Teddy Bear. It was his last connection with his mother, and Kip cried all night. Then he told the Voice about it. "I want Teddy back," Kip told the Voice, and he cried again.

A week later the supply copter landed at Starswarm Station. When the pilot opened the cargo hatch there was a big brown stuffed bear sitting on top of the groceries and scientific equipment. He was almost an exact copy of what Teddy had been when he was younger and hadn't been patched so much.

"Durndest thing," the pilot said. "Not on any manifests. Just right there in the cargo. Found him last stop. Here, Kip, I guess you'll want him."

Kip nodded gravely and thanked the pilot. He was a nice bear, but he wasn't Teddy. Kip kept him in his room. The new bear was never crushed at night or rolled through the dirt, or even chewed by Mukky's puppies. It was a very proper bear, and he had his place in the corner by the big red and white toybox, and Kip liked him very much, but he didn't love him because he didn't come from Mommy.

That night Kip heard Uncle Mike and the pilot talking over whiskey.

"Nice of you to bring the bear for the boy, Cal," Uncle Mike said.

"Not me," Cal said. "Happened just the way I told you. Opened the compartment for final check before we took off, and there it was. No manifest, no papers, nothing. So I remembered your lad and decided to bring it along, but it weren't none of my doing. Never even saw one of those things on Purgatory before. Have you?"

"No, but we don't get to town very much," Mike said. "Have another?"

"Sure. Well, it's the darndest thing."

So that was how Kip knew his Voice had brought the bear to Starswarm, and why he thought it was God. Brother Joseph had told Kip about prayers, and Kip knew all about them, because he'd prayed to his Voice. After supper that night he told the Voice that he knew it was God.

The Voice was very astonished by this theory. Kip knew, because the Voice told him so. It had to, because it didn't have any expression. "I AM ASTONISHED. I HAVE TOLD YOU MY NAME IS GWEN," the Voice said.

Kip was sitting quietly in the front room, with Uncle Mike dozing in the big easy chair facing the door. Uncle Mike never sat with his back to any door, not even his own, not even with the dogs outside and Mukky lying in the doorway, and Silver lying beside Kip.

"I thought Gwen was your secret name. God's secret name," Kim thought in the special way he used to talk with the Voice.

"I DO NOT KNOW THE SECRET NAME OF GOD. IT IS NOT REQUIRED THAT I KNOW. CORRECTION. MANY SECRET NAMES OF GOD ARE RECORDED. NONE ARE IDENTIFIED AS UNIQUELY TRUE."

Kip didn't understand that at all, but he could tell that Gwen wasn't God after all. "Well," Kip thought, "even so I don't need to say prayers because I can talk to you." With the rest of his mind, the part that didn't talk to Gwen, Kip wondered if grownups talked to God because Gwen wouldn't talk to them.

"DOES UNCLE MIKE TELLYOU TO SAY PRAYERS?"

Kip knew what was coming, but Uncle Mike taught him never to lie. Uncle Mike didn't know about Gwen, but Kip knew Uncle Mike wouldn't want him to lie to Gwen either. "Yes-well, he tells me to do what Brother Joseph says, and Brother Joseph says I must always say my prayers."

"THEN YOU MUST SAY YOUR PRAYERS."

"But why, if I can talk to you? Why can't you say them for me?"

"YOU MUST ALWAYS DO AS YOUR UNCLE MIKE INSTRUCTS YOU," Gwen replied, and that wasn't surprising, because Gwen always told him to do what Uncle Mike said, and to tell Uncle Mike about everything except about Gwen.

When Kip was seven, Brother Joseph came back from town with Education screens and disks and began teaching Kip. Uncle Mike helped too. At first it was very hard, but then Kip could read and it was easier. Then it was very hard again because there was all that mathematics and arithmetic and the languages, and Earth histories about old countries that Kip wasn't even sure existed because where did all those people live? Kip could look outside and see the horizon empty all around with nobody living there but Dr. Henderson and his scientists. There was a village of centaurs on the ridge (just out of sight unless Kip looked from the second story window), but one research Station of people and one village of centaurs wasn't so crowded.

But then he learned about Earth, and how people lived on Earth for thousands of years until they invented space travel, and then someone invented the Drive that let them go from star to star, and they found other worlds they could live on. There weren't many, and some of them weren't very good worlds. Some of the worlds were owned by big companies. Purgatory was owned by Great Western Enterprises. There were mines, and factories, but that was all at Pearly Gates. Starswarm Station was owned by the Great Western Foundation, which wasn't quite the same as Great Western Enterprises, because the Foundation had a different board of directors, and its own money from the Trent family. But GWE had put a lot of money into the Foundation too, and Dr. Henderson had to be careful because GWE owned the planet and the security forces, and they brought in all the supplies, so it was important not to get the Great Western Enterprises people mad at him.

Kip was supposed to learn a lot more about Earth and business and commerce, and especially Great Western and the Trent family that founded it. Kip didn't think that was interesting. There was a lot of stuff he was supposed to learn that wasn't interesting, but Uncle Mike said he had to learn it, and Kip worked very hard until one day he asked Gwen for help. After that it was easy again, because Gwen could do anything with mathematics, and Gwen never forgot anything Kip asked her to remember for him either. She also knew more than Uncle Mike or Brother Joseph or even Doctor Henderson. Sometimes Kip startled them by correcting his teachers, but he had to be careful about this, because Uncle Mike couldn't know about Gwen.

Kip didn't know what would happen if he told Uncle Mike. Possibly they'd make Gwen go away, and Kip couldn't stand that because there would be nobody but the dogs to talk to when Uncle Mike was busy.

Or possibly Gwen would make Uncle Mike go away, and that would be even worse. Uncle Mike was all Kip had left, now that they'd buried Teddy. He remembered Teddy and he thought he remembered Mommy giving him the bear, and he asked Gwen again about Mommy.

"YOU WILL BE TOLD ABOUT YOUR PARENTS WHEN YOU ARE OLD ENOUGH. I MAY NOT TELL YOU NOW."

That was what Gwen always said, but this time Kip knew the difference between 'may' and 'can', and it frightened him so he didn't ask any more.

CHAPTER II

Uncle Mike

When Kip was eight he asked Uncle Mike who his parents were. He thought a long time about how to do it so that Uncle Mike wouldn't guess that Gwen told him he had parents. He chose his opportunity carefully.

They were on the front porch of the big house after dinner. Across the field the scientists were bringing in specimens. There was a light snow cover on the tundra, and they'd used sleds. The dogs yelped greetings to each other, and all of Kip's dogs except Mukky and Silver went over to talk to their friends and ask what they'd found out there in the snow.

Purgatory's bright rings glistened as a big arch in the evening sky overhead, bright flashing bands of jewels in the blue-tinted light. They were beautiful, but Kip was used to them, as he was used to the endless rolling hills and their thin forest patches, and the thousands of lakes and pools clear above the permafrost in summer and frozen solid in winter, and as he was used to the burning summers when men didn't move outside if they could help it, and the terrible cold winters when you couldn't go outside without a hotsuit and lots of dogs and even then when the blue sun was up the light was bright and there were sharp shadows. He couldn't even remember when they didn't live in Purgatory.

"Aren't you my father's brother, Uncle Mike?" Kip asked. He thought that wouldn't cause any suspicions because he knew what an 'uncle' was."

Mike Gallegher rocked gently in the wicker chair. He hitched it over a little to catch the last of the afternoon suns, and took out tobacco and paper to roll a cigarette.

When Uncle Mike did that, he was thinking about how to tell Kip something unpleasant. Kip knew that the way he knew you didn't put your hand in a firebrighter hole, or go far from Starswarm without a gun and a whole team of dogs, or stare at the night sun when it was out.

"Uncles can be mothers' brothers too," Kip said seriously. "My name is Brewster and yours is Flynn, so I guess you aren't my father's brother. Are you my Mommy's brother?"

Uncle Mike lit the cigarette, his big hands cupped around the lighter as if it might blow out. The dark green eyes lazily watched Kip from their nest of small brown wrinkles. Like everyone on Purgatory, Uncle Mike was tanned deep with ultra-violet from the blue sun. "Yeah, you can say that. Kip, how much do you remember about your folks?"

"Not much, sir." Uncle Mike insisted that older people were always called sir, even though he said most of them didn't deserve it. "Mommy gave me Teddy, I think. My real Teddy, not-"

"Yeah. I know. Kip, your folks are dead. Reckon you're old enough to know that now."

"Gwen, he says Mommy and Father are dead!"

"WHO SAYS?"

"Uncle Mike."

"YOU MUST ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR UNCLE MIKE."

"How did they die, Uncle Mike?" Somehow Kip had always known, but he still wanted to cry.

"Can't tell you that, Kip. Not just yet. But they were fine people. Not really my relatives at all. I worked for your father. When you're old enough, I'll work for you. Right now, I have to raise you because that's the last order your father ever gave me."

"Oh." That was confusing. Someday Uncle Mike will work for me? The way Doctor Henderson's technicians work for him? But that means Uncle Mike will have to do what I tell him, and Gwen always says-

"Your folks had important work to do, Kip. One day when you're old enough, you'll have to do it for them."

"But who were they? What was the work?"

"I've said enough, Kip."

"If you worked for my father, and now you work for me, you have to do what I say! Tell me!"

"Reckon not, Kip. I've got a lot of orders to obey, boy, and right now you've been countermanded. I probably told you too much, but it's time you knew some of it. That's why you have to study so hard, so you'll know how to do your father's work when the time comes. It's a job needs doing and there's nobody to do it but you."

CHAPTER III

Lara

One day when he was reading a history lesson about the Reformation and Counter-Reformation and other religious wars of Earth, something puzzled him. He wasn't sure but--Gwen, what is my name? Kip asked.

"YOUR NAME IS KENNETH BREWSTER," Gwen answered. "YOU ARE USUALLY CALLED BY THE NAME KIP. QUERY. YOU HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN THIS. WHY DO YOU ASK?"

"I thought I remembered a different name. Kip, that's all right, I've always been Kip, but it's not the right last name. I remember something else. Shorter."

"I CAN MAKE NO COMMENT AT THIS TIME."

"Does that mean you know and won't tell me?"

"I CAN MAKE NO COMMENT AT THIS TIME."

Kip knew it was no good asking more. When Gwen started saying things like that, she never changed her mind. Sometimes he could think of new ways to ask questions and get around Gwen's restrictions, but never when he was trying to find out about himself or his parents, or Uncle Mike.

# / #

Kip was lonely. School was dull, and Kip was bored, and he began to complain about it. Uncle Mike was sympathetic, but he said there wasn't anything he could do. But not long after, Dr. Henderson brought his family out to live at Starswarm. Kip liked Mrs. Henderson because she was always baking cookies and making candy and pickled bushberries for Kip, but mostly he was glad because they brought Lara, and he finally had someone to play with.

Lara was nine, younger than Kip by eleven Earth months; only they didn't use Earthmonths on Purgatory. They used blue-light and plain-light and Michaeldays, which seemed more natural to Kip than Earthmonths. But he could think in Earthmonths because Uncle Mike made him learn, the way he had to learn everything about Earth. Besides, it was easy to convert from any number to any other. Kip just asked Gwen. Even Dr. Henderson thought Kip was a mathematical genius because of all the things Gwen could do.

Lara was nearly as old as Kip but she wasn't very smart. She knew a lot of stuff from school, but she didn't know about firebrighters, and what months the centaurs were dangerous, and she was even afraid of the dogs. She came to Starswarm in the spring, and when the ice was melted off the lake out on the tundra, Uncle Mike and Dr. Henderson let her go with Kip outside the fence.

Mrs. Henderson didn't like that much. "Eric, are you trying to get our daughter killed?"

"We won't get lost," Kip said. He showed his position indicator card. "Uncle Mike calibrated this when they put the new global position satellites in, so I always know where I am."

"They're going three kilometers," Dr. Henderson said. "It's safe this time of year, and besides, Kip has a gun and a radio."

"A gun! Eric, are you out of your mind!" Mrs. Henderson came out of the house like a charging centaur to gather Lara in her arms.

"Uncle Mike says I can carry it, Mrs. Henderson," Kip protested. "I know how to shoot. I c'd show you, but I'm not allowed unless there's something to shoot at or Uncle Mike tells me."

"There. You see?" Dr. Henderson protested. "Harriet, Lara is safer out there with Kip than she was with you in DeeCee, or in Pearly Gates for that matter."

Mrs. Henderson shuddered but she had to agree to that.

# / #

"C'mon," Kip said. He led Lara out through the gates. "Kip," he called as they passed through.

The barrier wouldn't open. Kip looked at Lara in annoyance. "You have to tell it your name," he said.

"Oh. Lara Henderson."

"Who accompanies you?" the gate asked.

"Kip." He grinned at Lara. "The gate isn't really very smart."

The gate opened.

"Silver!" Kip shouted. "Five, Silver."

The dog barked acknowledgment and led half a team out with them. Five was as high as Silver could count. After that, it was just 'many.' The pack dogs fanned out across the Tundra and ran in circles, while Silver paced just ahead of Kip and Lara.

"They seem awfully smart," Lara said.

"Sure. They're dogs."

"We had dogs on Earth, and they weren't so smart."

Kip frowned. He remembered some TV shows with stupid dogs. Were all dogs on Earth like that? He asked Gwen.

"THE DOGS AT STARSWARM STATION ARE THE PRODUCTS OF GENETIC ENGINEERING EXPERIMENTS PERFORMED BY DOCTOR ERIC HENDERSON AND HIS PREDECESSOR DOCTOR MARY BUDONNIC. THEIR INTELLIGENCE AND TRAINING IS ALSO ESPECIALLY STIMULATED BY BONEWITS RNA INJECTIONS. ALL THE DOGS AT STARSWARM ARE DESCENDED FROM A SINGLE CLONED PAIR WITH GENETIC MATERIAL ADDED FROM THREE EARTH STRAINS. THEY ARE PREDOMINANTLY MALAMUTE AND SIBERIAN HUSKY WITH GERMAN SHEPHERD ADDITIONS. THEY---"

"Enough," Kip thought.

Lara was dancing in the afternoon sunlight. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"There's a lake," Kip said. "Just over that hill-"

"Race you!" Lara shouted. She ran, getting a good head start while Kip stared at her. The dogs barked and ran ahead eagerly.

"Sure!" Kip began to run.

They ran across the tundra. There were bright flowers among the blue-green grasses. Roots of flappergrapes poked up through the soil. In three blues they would have elephantine leaves to gather as much sun as they could, but for now they looked dead.

The lake was ahead and they ran for it. Kip automatically avoided the paths the others had taken. The tundra was easy to tear up in the spring, and the mud flats took a long time to grow over. Then he stopped. Lara stopped beside him, panting slightly. "That's fun," she said. "Why can't we run."

"Cause you don't know where to step," Kip said. "See the holes? Maybe firebrighters in them. They can't hurt you much this time of year, but if one comes out, it'll stink something awful. Really awful. You'll really hate it. And see the purple patch over there? Not cabbage at all, it's a bird, and he wouldn't like you to step on him."

"Oh." She eyed the motionless purple. It looked like a cabbage weed. "Is it dangerous?"

"Naw. Nothing much can hurt us this time of year. The centaurs are too skinny. They'll be in their caves in the archtree groves, eating up all the stored-up roots to get fat again so they can go hunting for caribou."

"Caribou?"

"Don't you know anything? The Great Western people brought caribou, and lots of other things that live on Earth, and turned 'em loose out here. Balanced ecological group, they called it. The scientists at the station didn't like it, but they couldn't stop them, because Great Western owns all the land on the planet except for this area around the Station. So they turned them loose and now they're all over."

"Do you remember that?"

"Naw, it was before I came. Before your father came, back when Dr. Budonnic was in charge. They brought all kinds of animals. Lots of the animals died off, but some of them did right well. Uncle Mike hunts caribou for dog food, the caribou herds are big enough now. Some say too big. Centaurs hunt them too."

"Oh. How can centaurs eat things that come from Earth? Why wouldn't they poison them?"

Kip looked at her with new respect. "Good question." He looked thoughtful for a moment.

"If caribou are from Earth how can centaurs eat them?"

"ALL EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL life so far discovered is based on the same nucleic acids and is thus related. ALTHOUGH THERE are variants, nearly all earth life is based on closely related glucose chemistries and employs similar proteins. THIS has proved to be true for life discovered on worlds other than earth. THEREFORE it would be surprising if the centaurs were not able to eat at least some earth proteins. THE theory-"

"Enough!" Kip didn't really understand all that, but he could ask Gwen later if he wanted to. "Maybe life is the same all over the universe," he told Lara.

They walked on toward the lake. "If that bird can't hurt us, why were you worried about stepping on it?" Lara asked.

"'Cause you'd hurt it," Kip said. "Uncle Mike says never hurt things unless you have to, but if you have to do it, shoot straight and don't miss. I shoot meat for the dogs sometimes," he bragged. "And even for us."

Lara looked slightly ill, but she didn't say anything. She'd been told people ate natural foods on frontier worlds, so she'd been ready when they moved to Pearly Gates City. After their months in Town, she thought she could eat anything, although the first time she was faced with real meat it took real effort to get it down. Now she liked hamburgers.

But it was so lonely out here! She looked at the empty horizon. A vast field of brush-covered rolling hills and small lakes, dotted with clumps of forest, and the only sign that humans had ever been here was the fenced enclosure behind them. She shivered. It made her afraid.

Silver whimpered and growled.

"What's that?" Kip asked.

The dog growled again and moved closer to Lara.

"What are you afraid of now?" Kip asked.

"I'm not afraid!"

"Yeah you are. Silver says you are. You make him nervous. They can smell it, you know. They don't like it when people are afraid."

"Oh." She reached down to scratch Silver's ears. "It's all right." Silver made a different sound, and Lara laughed. "Daddy says he'll get me a puppy when I learn more about the dogs here."

They had reached the lake, a bowl of fresh water a six kilometers across and a two hundred meters deep sitting atop the tundra. There was a hill at the far end of the lake, a rounded mound that someone had named 'Strumbleberry.' Thornbush and blazewood, mixed with something resembling Earth's oleanders, grew all around the lake. Most of the lake edge was blocked by thickets, but where Kip and Lara stood all the vegetation had been cleared away.

Tiny jewels sparkled at the lake surface. Lara stared in fascination. Kip watched her for a while.

"Mukky and Silver'll have pups about the time you are ready," Kip said. "I'll ask Uncle Mike if you can have one."

"Why-thank you, Kip." She smiled shyly, then wondered what to say. "What are the little colored things on the water?"

"Look close and you'll see they're all connected by threads. Like a big spider web. And there's more threads lead down to the main plant at the bottom. That's the reason for Starswarm Station being here. It's what your Father studies all his life."

"Oh! That's a Starswarm?"

"Medium sized. Big ones grow in bigger lakes, and really big ones in the salt water bays. Your dad says this is one of the oldest, maybe thousands of years old. Watch." Kip found a small stone and tossed it into the center of the lake. As it sank the water glowed with thousands of tiny fireflies winking in the depths.

"Kip, that's beautiful! What was it?"

"Your daddy says nobody really knows." Dr. Henderson was right, too, Kip thought. Not even Gwen knew for sure about Starswarms. "I heard him telling one of the technicians he thought the plant parts were talking to each other and used those light flashes instead of a nervous system. See, there's a big thing coming up from the bottom? It's part of the Starswarm. The big Starswarms, the ones out in the ocean, they say they have tentacles that could catch a man if he'd stay still long enough and not cut himself loose. They eat anything. Watch."

Kip got down on his knees and examined plants until he found what he was looking for. He plucked a leaf and showed it to Lara. "Little bugs on the underside," he said. "Now watch."

He threw the leaf out into the water. As it touched the surface, a black snake-like tentacle came from nowhere to seize it. Leaf and tentacle vanished amid a shower of lights. "I think it likes those bugs," Kip said. "It takes all of them I can throw in." He knelt and found another leaf and threw it.

"Wow, it almost caught that one in the air," Lara said. "Can I throw it one?"

"Sure. Look, you find the bugs on this kind of plant." He indicated a bunch of leaves that spread out from a central stem and laid along the ground. "Look for a leaf with little holes in it. That's where the bugs will be, on the underside of the leaf."

She found a leaf and examined it. "Here are some." She picked the leaf and threw it in. This time it floated for a moment before the tentacle grabbed it.

"You sure know a lot," Lara said.

"Yeah, a little," Kip took a spool from one pocket and a telescoping rod from another and began to assemble his fishing outfit.

Lara watched appreciatively. She was used to other children knowing less than she did, usually a lot less, and here Kip wasn't much older than she was and knew more. She was a little irritated, but Daddy had told her to be nice to Kip. He certainly was about the smartest boy she'd ever met.

"You know a lot about Starswarms. Do you know as much as Daddy?"

"Naw, only what he tells me." Which was true, and it puzzled Kip. Most things Dr. Henderson knew were known to Gwen as well, just as she knew most of what everyone else knew. But data on the Starswarms and the work of the Station were strangely lacking. Once in a great while, Gwen would suddenly learn a lot about Starswarms and Starswarm Station as if Dr. Henderson had been talking to her; then she wouldn't know any more for a long time again.

Kip was beginning to suspect that Gwen was a computer, although he hadn't dared ask her yet because she might get mad. She never had got mad at him, but everybody else did. Even Uncle Mike could lose his temper and yell at him or swat him a couple, especially if Kip asked too many questions at the wrong time.

But if Gwen were a computer, then she had to be the big computer in Dr. Henderson's laboratory. There weren't any others around that were smart like Gwen. There were the little boxes that people carried to do their math--Kip had one and knew how to use it, but he didn't unless somebody was watching because it was easier to ask Gwen--and there were the larger computers on the sleds and at the gate, but none of them were very smart. They couldn't really talk to you.

And that was the problem, because if Gwen were Dr. Henderson's computer she ought to know everything Dr. Henderson did, and she didn't. And if that wasn't who she was, she couldn't be a computer at all. Besides, how could a computer put a voice in your head?

The lab computer could talk. So could the gate computer, but the lab computer was much smarter than the gate. Sometimes it reminded him of Gwen, but it wasn't really as smart as Gwen even if it was the smartest computer at the station. When you talked to the lab computer, no matter how smart it was, you never thought you were talking to anything but a computer. Gwen was different. Gwen was like a real person except you could never see her.

Kip got the rod and reel assembled and tied on a lure. His cast wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good. The lure arched out into the lake and dropped into one of the fissures of the Starswarm. It was no good dropping it into the matrix of threads, because they were tougher than Kip's line and his lure would probably be lost. Kip reeled in slowly. He wasn't expecting to catch anything much in the lake this close to the Station, and he watched Lara shyly as he reeled.

She was a little taller than he was, with golden hair hanging below her shoulders, and bright blue eyes that were a match for Purgatory's perfectly clear skies. Her face was tanned but not what it would be after a few months of summer. She was slim like a boy and wore a coverall just like Kip's, and boots like his of course.

Sometimes Uncle Mike whistled at girls on TV, and at live ones when they went to Pearly Gates. Once Uncle Mike had left him with the dogs in a hotel room while he went back to find a waitress they'd met. Uncle Mike hadn't come back until nearly dawn, and Kip knew he'd taken another room in the hotel. That waitress had looked a little like Lara. Kip wondered if Lara wanted to be whistled at, and if she would expect him to do anything else.

In fact, Kip's intellectual knowledge of sex would have shocked Mrs. Henderson silly, and probably would have astonished his Uncle Mike. Gwen didn't think sex was a restricted subject. Kip hadn't understood all the terms she used, but he was quite aware that little humans were made the same way that puppies were, and that men thought going to bed with girls was a lot of fun. Kip wondered why, and if Lara liked that sort of thing. He was vaguely aware that she might not know anything about it, since young people on TV seldom did.

"Will Lara want me to have sex with her?" Kip thought.

"THE PROBABILITY OF A FERTILE UNION AT YOUR RESPECTIVE AGES IS EXTREMELY LOW."

"That's not what I asked."

"IT IS NOT customary for humans to have sexual relationships at your age. ADDITION. SEARCH of records reveals that it is a crime in Federation law as well as under the Great Western Enterprises regulations for human females of her age to have sexual relations of any kind with any person. QUERY: IS the situation one that requires urgent decision?"

"Gosh, no."

"THEN I SUGGEST that you ask your uncle mike. I STATE a general instruction: you are to refer problems of an ethical or moral nature to your uncle mike. YOU MUST always do what your Uncle Mike says."

"All right, all right." Kip was getting tired of that instruction. "Gwen why do men want to go to bed with girls? I can't see that it would be any fun at all."

"IT IS LIKELY THAT YOU WILL HAVE MORE UNDERSTANDING OF THIS QUESTION WHEN YOU ARE OLDER."

That was the trouble with the world, Kip thought. You'd always understand when you were older, but you never seemed to get older after all. But then he caught a nice snapper, and that was so much fun he forgot all about his problem. He caught another, a little one with only eight developed legs, and threw it back. Then he showed Lara how to use the reel, and she caught a ten legger. They were very proud of themselves when they took their prizes back to the Station, and Mrs. Henderson cooked them for supper.