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are you? You will stand on your toes until I am finished giving orders for Midshipwoman Besen. Then we will discuss
     the proper punishment for you.”
    Toby blinked, opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it. He swallowed and rose on his toes, hands at his side.
    “Now,” Killeen said slowly to Besen, who had all thistime remained standing at attention, eyes ahead—though at the word
tongue-wagging
a quick grin had flashed across her face. “I believe Officer Shibo has instructions for your task. Perform it with all good
     speed.”

SIX
    Besen proved equal to the demands of finding and extruding from the ancient ship’s hull the needed opticals. They followed
     her progress on the main monitor. Killeen gave Toby a dressing-down in front of Cermo and Shibo, knowing that through Cermo
     the story would get through the ship faster than if he had played it over full comm. All the while Toby had to remain on his
     toes, even after the ache began to twist his face with grimaces and sweat beaded on his brow. In this contest between father
     and son there could be only one winner—Family legacy and the demands of the ship itself required that—but Toby held out as
     long as he could. Finally, in the middle of a deliberately protracted lecture by Killeen on the necessity of following orders
     exactly, Toby toppled over, crashing to the deck.
    “Very good. Lesson finished,” Killeen said, and turned back to the main display screen.
    Besen had adroitly arranged the fibery, translucent opticals, which were too delicate to be permanently exposed. She tilted
     their platform so they could find the tiny glimmering planet that lay swaddled in the dusty arms of the star’s ecliptic plane.
    Shibo brought up an image from it quickly. Killeen watched the watery light resolve, while Toby got up andLieutenant Cermo ordered him back to station. It had been a hard thing to do but Killeen was sure he was right, and his Ling
     Aspect agreed. The inherent contradictions involved in running a crew that was also a Family demanded that difficult moments
     not be avoided.
    “What…what’s that?” Cermo asked, forgetting that it was a good rule never to question a Cap’n. Killeen let it pass, because
     he could well have asked the same question.
    Against a mottled background hung a curious pearly thing, a disk penetrated at its center by a thick rod. Strange extrusions
     pointed from the rod at odd angles. Instinctively Killeen knew it was no Chandelier. It had none of the legendary majesty
     and lustrous webbed beauty.
    “Mechwork, could be,” he said.
    Shibo nodded. “It circles above the same spot on the planet.”
    “Is there some way we can approach the planet, keeping this thing always on the other side?” Killeen asked.
    He still had only a dim comprehension of orbital mechanics. His Arthur Aspect had shown him many moving displays of ships
     and stars, but little of it had stuck. Such matters were far divorced from the experience of a man who had lived by running
     and maneuvering on scarred plains.
    Once, when Killeen had asked if a ship could orbit permanently over a planet’s pole, Ling had laughed at him—an odd sensation,
     for the tinny voice seemed to bring forth echoes of other Aspects Killeen had not summoned up. It had taken him a while to
     see that such an orbit was impossible. Gravity would tug down the unmoving ship.
    “I can try for that in the close approach. But even now this thing could have seen us.”
    “We will avoid it then, Officer Shibo. Give me a canted orbit, so this satellite can’t see us well.”
    Shibo nodded, but by her quick, glinting eyes he knewshe understood his true thoughts. Soon he had to decide whether they would pause in this system at all. The Mantis, that frosty
     machine intelligence of Snowglade, had set them on this course. But if the planet ahead proved to be mechrun, Killeen would
     take them out of the system as swiftly as he could. But where was the crucial choice