Free Gibraltar Sun by Michael McCollum Page B

humans could support the same sort of bugs, they would have discovered that fact long before now.
    However, as any imbecile should have known, disease was not the only worry where Sar-Say was concerned. Being the only representative of his species currently in human hands, Sar-Say was uniquely valuable as a study subject. What if someone assassinated the silly looking little monster?
    Nor was assassination out of the question. According to news reports, emotions were running high on Earth, with every politician talking about the advisability of confronting the Broa. (Landon was amused in a cynical way about the politico’s avoidance of strong, clear verbs such as “attack,” “do battle with,” “conquer.”) Most seemed to be unsure of where to come down on the issue, with not a few of them coming down strongly for both sides.
    Then there was the problem of Sar-Say himself. Despite being a prisoner, he had proven himself a skilled manipulator. Somehow he had managed to get them to send thirteen starships to the Crab Nebula and back — a roundtrip of 14,000 light-years! Once in the Klys’kra’t system, he had nearly convinced Landon to allow him to join the contact party. The captain still shuddered that he had even contemplated bending mission rules to accede to the alien’s request.
    The intercom chose that moment to beep for attention.
    “What is it?” Landon asked.
    “Incoming message for you, Captain,”
    “Read it, Mister.”
    “It’s from Admiral Carnes, sir. He is asking you to join him in his quarters at 14:00 hours.”
    “Does he say why?”
    “No, sir. Just the request that you join him and the time.”
    Landon chuckled. “When an admiral ‘requests,’ it’s an order. Acknowledge the receipt and tell them that I will be there. Then have the Exec break out the landing boat.”
    “Aye aye, sir.”
    #
    High Station was the headquarters of the Stellar Survey, where starships prepped for their missions and to which they returned from the deep black. It had been unnaturally quiet around the station for the past three years. Now the fleet was back from the Crab.
    There was Magellan , Landon’s previous command, its great globe floating serenely against the limb of the Earth, half in light, half in dark. Beyond it was City of Tulsa , one of the great colony ships. And beyond that was Ponce de Leon , Magellan’ s sister ship. The fleet had returned home, leaving only two starships to guard humanity’s first outpost in the Sovereignty.
    Just before the fleet’s departure from Brinks, there had been a great shuffling of crews. Those who would stay behind were culled from the full fleet. They were largely unmarried, male and female, with few ties to Earth. Manning the rear guard meant that they would not likely see home again for five years or more.
    High Station lay ahead as his landing boat moved across traffic lanes filled with vacsuited bodies and small intra-orbit craft. There were the local workboats, along with the ungainly ferries that never entered atmosphere. There were even two sleek winged craft whose journeys took them from ground to orbit. These were a rarity since most passengers for High Station passed through Equatorial Station en route, shifting to the extra-atmospheric shuttles. The winged landing craft were docked at the station, their dorsal airlocks hooked to the non-rotating docking sphere like two lampreys on a shark.
    The station itself was a long cylinder spinning slowly about its central axis. The cylinder’s length was four times its diameter, with a long pole sticking out the end pointed toward Earth. At the other end of the station was the docking sphere. Cylinder and sphere were coupled together by a large bearing and a complex rotational joint, allowing the habitat to rotate while the docking sphere remained stationary.
    “We’ve been cleared straight in to Docking Bay Alpha-Nine, sir,” Melissa Trank, the landing boat’s pilot reported to Landon, who sat strapped