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noises. The muffled
     thud of heels, a gurgle of fluids in pipes, a subtle creaking of decks and joints. But now there was a lower note, coming
     from the rub of interstellar dust against the giant balloonlike lifezones.
    The strumming sound had gathered over the last weeks, a deep voice that spoke in subliminal bass notes of the coming of the
     beckoning yellow star. Decelerating,
Argo
swooped among thickening dustclouds that shrouded thisside of the coming sun. Mottled dustlanes, cinder-dark, cloaked their view of the inner planets.
    The low, resonant bass note kept its unnerving, constant pitch. Sometimes in his sleep he imagined that a slow, solemn voice
     was speaking to him, the words drawn into a dull moan that forewarned doom. Other nights it was a giant’s drunken boom hurling
     slurred words at him, the tones shaking his body.
    He had immediately shrugged off these rough visions; a Cap’n could not afford to harbor such gloomy and irrational thoughts.
     Still, the hum now came creeping into his hands as they rested on the table. As a boy he had not known the stars were other
     suns. The spilling fluid flow of gas and smoldering dust about Galactic Center had seemed inconsequential, forever silent
     and distant.
    Now the thick churn sang against
Argo
, a quickening wind driven by the galactic wheel. The
Argo
had somehow tapped this gale, he knew, harnessed its unseen dynamics. The massive, dusty currents smothered suns and silted
     planets with grime, so his Arthur Aspect said. The moaning that ranged and stuttered through
Argo
seemed to wail of dead worlds, of silted time, and of the choked-off visions of lost races he would never know.
    The tabletop between them flickered abruptly. Shibo’s chiseled features appeared, flattened and distorted by the angle. “Pardon,”
     she said when she saw Lieutenant Cermo. “We have clear view now, Cap’n.”
    “You see more inner worlds?”
    “Aye, a new one. Dust hid it before.”
    “Good detail?”
    “Aye, sir,” Shibo said, her glinting eyes betraying a quick, darting enthusiasm. If it had been just the two of them, she
     probably would have thrown in a dry joke.
    Killeen made himself take his time finishing the bowl ofgreen goulash and then savored the last dregs of his tea. He spoke slowly, almost casually. “Take a sure sighting, using all
     the detectors?”
    “Course,” Shibo said, a small upturning of the corners of her lips showing that she understood that this show was for Cermo’s
     benefit.
    “Then I’ll be along in a bit,” Killeen said with unexcited deliberation. He had seen his father use this ruse long ago in
     the Citadel.
    Cermo shifted impatiently in his chair. They all wanted to know to what world two years of voyaging had brought them. Many
     still felt that the Mantis had sent them toward a lush, green world. Killeen was by no means convinced. He trusted no mech.
     He still remembered with relish their obliteration of the Mantis in
Argo’
s exhaust wash at liftoff.
    He took his time with the tea, using it to consider the possible reactions of the Family if their expectations were not met.
     The prospect was sobering.
    He debated having another cup of tea. No, that would be too much torture for Cermo—though the man had certainly seemed to
     like handing it out to the Radanan woman earlier.
    Forgoing the tea, he nonetheless put on his full tunic and walked rather more slowly than usual around the ship’s axis and
     up one level.
    His officers had already assembled in the control vault when Killeen arrived. They were staring at the big display screen,
     pointing and whispering. Killeen realized that a proper Cap’n would not allow such milling in the confines of the control
     vault, despite the fact that this was a completely natural reaction to years of long voyaging.
    He said sharply, “What? Nobody’s got jobs? Lieutenant Jocelyn, how’s the patching going in the dry zone? Faldez, those pipes
     still clogged in the agro