Heaven by Ian Stewart Page A

city, had
     that been necessary.
    Like all Precursor ships that had ever been found,
Talitha
had no weapons. But its size alone was intimidating.
    Ancestral Neanderthals had inherited the ship forty thousand years back, along with several others, from their rescuers, and
     had been using it ever since to travel the length and breadth of the Galaxy. Because of relativistic time-dilation, the crew
     had lived through a mere three thousand years of subjective time since the evacuation.
    They generally traveled for subjectively short periods—a few shipboard years, long enough to reach the nearest worthwhile
     star, maybe fifty light-years away—and then based themselves in that region of the Galaxy for a generation or so, trading
     goods and facilitating the exchange of valuable information. They were in no great hurry to go anywhere in particular or achieve
     anything special, but they were wanderers at heart and seldom stayed anywhere for more than twenty years, fifty at the outside.
    Like most of the Galaxy’s nomads, they mainly followed the spiral arms that wound outward from the Galactic Hub. In the arms,
     stars were more densely distributed, so travel times to the next habitable system were less. A few adventurers had struck
     out across the interarm voids, with mixed success. Most had never returned.
    Along the way, the Neanderthals had made contact with many civilizations, and occasionally representatives of some of these
     had been added to the crew. Now Will was faced with a problem. The reefmind had convinced him that she existed, and his ansible
     had a new encryption disk to prove it, a direct link to Atollside Port. This was a big secret, and he would probably be able
     to exploit it to advantage at some future date. In the meantime, May and Stun had negotiated a potential deal with that strange
     little polypoid Second-Best Sailor. It was a very favorable deal from the Neanderthals’ point of view. But the rest of the
     crew weren’t convinced that they wanted to move again yet, and Ship was sensing that majority opinion and refusing to budge.
    There was no point in arguing with Ship. Instead, over the years, Will had developed several effective techniques for persuading
     the crew to go along with his wishes. If he could develop a consensus, Ship would go along with the decision, he was sure.
     So he bustled about the mile-long vessel, arguing and persuading, cutting side deals if necessary, wheedling and disputing,
     reminding his crew again and again of the astonishing revelations about the reefwives’ collective mentality. And the innate
     empathic sense that all Neanderthals possessed gave him such an edge that soon Ship was positively enthusiastic about the
     whole idea and was offering unsolicited advice and assistance.
    May and Stun, waiting patiently, got word that the deal was on.
    “
How
many transpods?” May asked Will, almost shouting into her ansible.
    “Ship says it is sending three. Plus a small one to communicate directly with the reefmind.”
    “We were only expecting one.”
    “I know. But you know what Ship is like when it senses a really strong consensus. I guess I must have oversold the evacuation
     analogy. Everyone seems to think that it would be a great idea to make a symbolic gesture and repay the universe for arranging
     our rescue. The Tweel in particular like the sense of closure in that, and they seem to have inspired the others with a sudden
     sense of cosmic brotherhood and historical fitness.”
    “That sounds dangerously like Cosmic Unity.”
    “No, just a harmless, spontaneous upwelling of goodwill. It will not last. Anyway, you had better tell Second-Best Sailor
     to round up another forty of his friends. And get busy duplicating sailor suits.”
    “We will not be using a transible, then.”
    “No, the power drain would not be justified, and the recycle time is too long for us to transport enough mariners by that
     means,” said Will, confirming May’s own