Axelrod Henderson kept his tsk tsk to himself as the airlock sphincter irised open revealing two of the greatest fashion disasters he had ever had the misfortune to witness paired together. The Jack, Stearn, mindlessly followed the latest bod trends, none of which had interested the biotech in at least a half century. The exobiologist was marginally better, with the good looks of a Homo sapiens version 1.1, but he wore ghastly black duradenim from head to streakers. The fabric was not supposed to wrinkle, but it had.

"Good morning, Dr. Fisher," Henderson said, pointedly ignoring Stearn whom he had already identified as an uninteresting boy. "The captain requested I give you a tour upon your arrival."

The Jack floated through the lock slowly, propelling himself with those ridiculous ear paraphernalia; Henderson imagined tiny Greek slaves chained to tiny oars sitting inside Stearn's head, powering his body like a barge -- and probably thinking for him as well. Behind him, Fisher nodded, and kicked forward in a manner showing some degree of competency in microgravity. Neither appeared to be suffering ill effects from the freefall; Henderson hoped that indicated their internal biologicals were good enough they wouldn't harass him for repairs during the voyage.



"I have a lot of work to get started on. I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to get acquainted with the Karamojo's features," said Fisher.



"The tour won't take long, I promise."



Fisher pressed his lips together, as if making a difficult decision, and said, "Okay."



"My biochip's loaded with the ship schematics," Stearn said. "I could give the tour."



"I'm sure, but the captain asked me to give the tour." Henderson spun and kicked off down the curving tunnel, trusting them to follow. "The whole ship is made of stacked rings. There's some flexibility built-in, and they can be made to rotate and twist individually to shift between gravitational modes." Henderson turned into a tube and floated past four rings. "These connect the rings. Now you know how to get from anywhere to anywhere in the ship's front torus."

"What are these air fish we keep passing?" Fisher asked.

One of the blowfish-shaped creatures drifted by his head. Swatting it away Henderson answered, "Mobile biorecyclers for our semi-closed system, effective in freefall or under gravity -- you should watch where you step. The fish keep things clean. Most dust is sloughed-off human skin, so that's their primary diet. The old or malfunctioning fish are in turn eaten by the cats, so don't be disturbed if you catch sight of one of the sneaky creatures slinking about."

Henderson kicked off around another quarter of the ring, and stopped in front of a large fleshy portal.

"I know where we are," Stearn said.



"I'm sure you do." Henderson tapped a panel and the portal irised, sphincter-like, onto a paradise. In the distance loomed a snow-covered mountain casting a long shadow across a savanna, complete with grass rippling in a wind and the smell of herd animals. Animals themselves were not apparent. A relentless dry heat emanated from this miniature world within the ship. Less than a kilometer across, it seemed to extend forever.



"What is this?" asked Fisher.



"It's an ecosystem delivery unit, of course," Stearn answered. "That's what this ship was used for previously: colonization. Ecosystem delivery of Biolathe-developed life forms. No losing the design to gene pirates via a broadcast, or to unscrupulous colonists. Deliver the wetware directly, grown en route and delivered in prime shape. Colonists loathe to wait for anything to grow from scratch. Screw it up when they do, too. I expect we can use this chamber to cage the dragon."



Fisher snorted. "Unlikely," he said, but didn't explain further.



Henderson said, "Captain Fang wanted to take a piece of Earth with us. The current projection is what Tanzania looked like long ago, before the space port. This is where we came from, started to walk upright, and became men. No real animals here, but Papa can provide virtual game, or grow the real thing by request."



"I like games," Stearn said, jumping into the space before them and releasing an ululating holler that he must have been saving up. "Hey, show me some wildebeest, Papa!"



A gravely male voice boomed, "Will you please let me alone? I'm trying to work."



"Papa's the ship's brain?" Fisher asked.



Henderson nodded. "And something of a grouch when there's work to do, at least with me. The captain has him dancing on the head of a pin, some exquisite priority code that even Stearn wouldn't dare override on a lark if he knows what's good for him. Ready for the next stop?"



"Lead on, Mr. Henderson."



Henderson closed the portal, cutting off Stearn's resumed yelling.

"Thank you," said Fisher.

"You're welcome. Now, this way," he said, kicking off. Henderson showed him the galley, a drab utilitarian place sporting little more than a mahogany bartree and standard-issue chairbeasts. "Can you guess the number one menu item?"

Fisher said, "Fish sticks?"

"All the time, but in a wide variety of scrumptious flavors, I assure you. Taste like anything you want. I have supplemented the menu with a gourmet selection."

Henderson stopped at a viewing port along the inside curve of the ring they were in. "You can see the hollow interior of the Karamojo from here."

Fisher drifted over and pushed his face against the window's diamond to have a peek. Henderson floated up behind him and peered over his shoulder. Along the central axis ran a tube of diamond girders that held the superconducting electromagnets that constituted the inner rail. They generated a portion of the ship's field that shielded them from cosmic rays and could be used as a linear particle accelerator for on-axis propulsion. More importantly, the rail controlled their relationship to the charged singularity pair when they were under wormdrive. The far side of the ring was some four kilometers away, almost lost in the glare off the Pacific Ocean, which shone through the ship's open end. Hydroponic farms grew inside the diamond girders like fungus, engineered and positioned to take advantage of the high-energy light that would spew from the fore singularity under wormdrive. "Impressive," Fisher said.

"I suppose," Henderson said, nonchalantly. Biologicals were his area, and he decided to impress Fisher with his own work next. He led Fisher to the Hall of Trophies.

The Hall was situated within one of the ring-transiting tunnels and sheltered between closed doors. This meant that Fisher had no real warning before he was floating into the heads.

"Be careful -- they sometimes bite!" Henderson managed at the last moment as Fisher drifted past him.

Fisher lost some of his microgravity skills as he twisted his body about, but he was on an inevitable collision course with a big, black rhinoceros head. He did have enough composure to twist back into control and take grasp of the creature's horn. The rhino had the good grace to accept the rough handling as Fisher arrested his forward momentum, settling for a blink and a snort.

"It's alive." Fisher said, holding the horn like a swimmer holding a ladder in the deep end of a pool.

"Of course it's alive. This is a Biolathe ship. The majority of systems are biological, and we have the ability to shift our bioresources around to meet our needs. No clunky robots, subject to mechanical breakdown or electromagnetic scrambling. On this epic voyage, we lean on our strengths." Henderson smiled broadly. "I constructed this for the captain in less than a week."

The curved corridor represented some of Henderson's best work. Dozens of trophy heads sprouted along the path: the rhino for starters with its mate on the opposite side, then impalas, gazelles, kudus, water buffaloes, elephants (all three extinct varieties, Woolly, African, and Asian), giraffes, zebras, several types of big cat, dire wolves, gorillas, sasquatch, and a multitude of antlered deer. At the next bulwark, where the Hall ended, writhed a massive blue marlin in what would be the 'above' position under flight. Henderson smiled. "Let me know if you have any particular favorites to add."

The heads realized they had an audience, and most began to snarl, howl, low, growl, trumpet, or simply to twist frantically, as if eager for attention.

"Yes, it is impressive," Fisher said after a moment.

"I'm somewhat concerned about an organ bank failing behind the wall. Not the easiest place to reach," Henderson offered. "The automatic systems would clean things up, but not fast enough to fully keep away the stench I fear."

Fisher moved one hand from the horn and reached to touch other parts of it. The big head, showing no signs of antagonism, let him caress its expansive forehead. "Do you think we'll need such a large biomass reserve?"

The rhino grunted, as if echoing the question.

Henderson hadn't thought about it that carefully. The Karamojo was a larger ship with a larger fraction of biologicals than he'd served on before. He'd just followed the specs on the mass and used the captain's creative suggestion for where to put it. "I would certainly think not. This is an R and D mission to an uncolonized part of the distant galaxy. We shouldn't encounter pirates or rogue political bodies, so what could go wrong? We're safe, doubly so with this redunancy."

"No need to get excited," Fisher said. "I was just curious. I've been too busy preparing for this trip to load the ship's systems into my biochip and study them. Yet."

Henderson relaxed. Of course there was no need to get excited. Maybe his endorphin precursors were low -- he'd check later. No doubt by the time they returned to Earth the human brain would be well enough understood to permit an adequate assortment of mindmods rather than the slow but safe drugs in common use. Then he could be in control all the time, just as he was in control of the trophies here. He was benevolent god. These creatures did have minor mindmods and were healthier and happier than they ever could have been on Earth, thanks to his skills.

"Right. Well, let's move on." Henderson said.

As they proceeded to their next stop, the observatory, Fisher asked Henderson, "What's your opinion on the star dragon?"

Henderson had been snubbed before by such as Fisher when dropping by the receptions of some biological conferences. "Does an exobiologist really care what an Earth-based biosystems tech thinks?"

"Absolutely," Fisher replied promptly, eyes open and unblinking.

Maybe this Fisher fellow would be an ally, on this voyage and when they returned. Why not give it a chance? "I've thought about it, of course. I mean, it isn't likely for the dragon to be carbon-based at disk temperatures is it? But I know more than a little about life and the origins of complexity and self-organization. The entropy is too high for a life form to arise naturally in a hot plasma, and, biologically speaking, the accretion disk is a recent phenomenon in SS Cygni. You're not going to reach any level of complexity so fast. Now, I might change my mind with more data, of course." Best to appear open-minded, and not step on any of Fisher's pet ideas too hard until he knew what they might be.

"Mmm hmm. Like what?"

"Well, like evidence of a complete ecosystem. There's ample energy to provide high metabolisms and fast generational turnover. I'd want to identify the range of niches available and their populations."

"I was thinking along those lines myself," Fisher said.

Henderson smiled. He was about to go on, but he caught sight of orange-covered buttocks sticking out of an equipment dewar that reminded him that their physical scientist was quite callipigious.

"Hello gentlemen," Sylvia Devereaux greeted them after extracting herself. "Grand tour?"

"Yes," Fisher answered. "I imagine Captain Fang wants to tire me out so I won't cause any trouble before launch. So, what do have we here?"

Sylvia, dressed in a burnt-orange wrap that complimented her brown skin, spun around, pointing at an adjacent chamber filled with chunks of odd-shaped metal boxes, cylinders, and exposed electro-optics and quantum circuitry. "Your basic full-spectrum assortment of spectrographs, cameras, waveplates, bolometers, heterodyne receivers, or at least fiber-feeds and waveguides to such."

Fisher squinted at her. "You're going to do astronomy? Don't the relativistic effects make observing difficult?"

Henderson couldn't help but notice Sylvia's clothing. The wrap was modest, economical, and much more seductive than the fancifully augmented bare breasts that were seemingly always in style. She also had broad, child-bearing hips -- completely unfashionable for the past half century. She hit many of the subconscious cues programmed by natural selection, just as he tried to do. Despite the fact that she was a specialist in physical sciences, he wondered if her motives for making this voyage were similar to his own.

Sylvia answered Fisher's question. "You're correct that astronomy in general would be compromised by our velocity, but this is all for SS Cygni, Dr. Fisher. The relativistic effects enhance the intensity of the light in the direction we're traveling, making the binary system easier to make out. We drop the package right into the interior vacuum, look by the fore singularity and pick up a gravitational lensing boost. We know the parameters perfectly and can correct for all the effects."

Henderson was of two minds about her dreadlocks. Finally he decided they were a plus that fit her basic, raw Earth-mother image, a fertility goddess. Maybe this look was even her original one, and already naturally selected.

"Call me Sam," Fisher said. "Didn't the probe fully characterize the system?"

Ingratiating, or was he perhaps playing her? Maybe he should model the social dynamics; Biolathe already had, certainly, but that was private information. Maybe he could trick it out of Papa? Maybe Fisher was not an ally, but an opponent. Too many maybes he should have already considered if he was going to make the most of the next three years.

"Not by a long shot," Sylvia replied. "Those data are hundreds of years old, and poor in many respects. Don't forget that this is a time-variable, evolving system. I'll never make out dragons at this distance, but I'll tell you everything else you could want to know about SS Cygni by the time we arrive."

"Yes, that may be of use."

"Absolutely it will!" she said. "This ship is going to be pushing its safety limits over the accretion disk when it's quiescent. When the disk goes into a dwarf nova outburst, which it does two weeks out of every seven, we'll have to back off. Shortest interval between outbursts could be as little as a week, which we must plan for. The outbursts are chaotic in nature, depending on how the secondary spills mass across the Lagrangian point, like a faucet dripping. The outbursts occur when the mass build-up in the disk causes a thermal instability, and the angular momentum transfer picks up -- "

"Yes, well, we'll have to discuss it en route," Fisher said, smiling, holding his hands up to stop her flood of words.

"Of course," Sylvia said.

Had she said something about safety limits? He shrugged it off and stopped staring at Sylvia. Best now to disrupt the party. "Ready for the next stop, Dr. Fisher?"

"Sure," he said.

They moved on to the Higgs generators that teased the singularities from the quantum foam, the fly bridge where the human control interfaces of the ship were located, the shuttle bay, the supplies hold (incidental), the supplies hold (primary), supplies hold (industrial), and then, at Fisher's prompting, they skipped the rest of the supply holds. That was fine with Henderson, as some, like the missile bay, made him somewhat uncomfortable. Fissionables were dangerous. He accepted their presence as potentially invaluable tools for a lone ship over two hundred light years from home. Who knew what they might have to blow up in the distant reaches of the galaxy?



"Can't Papa teach me where things are?" Fisher asked.



"of course." Henderson shrugged. "The captain said to give you the tour."



"Where is Fang?"



Papa answered, "In the gym."



"Thank you," Henderson said.



"Which way?" asked Fisher.



"This way," said Henderson.



They heard the grunting from the open portal before they reached the freefall gym. Heat emanated from the opening, but unlike the savanna, this was a moist heat, full with the sourness of flesh pushed beyond comfortable limits. Henderson tilted his head at Fisher and extended an arm to invite the exobiologist to enter first.



Henderson knew what to expect -- he'd grown the gym, again according to the captain's guidelines -- but it was nevertheless unsettling to see it in operation.



The form of Captain Lena Fang, wearing only a white one-piece, was held, suspended, in a net of fleshy pink tendrils. The sight made Henderson think of pumpkin innards. Bioelectric shocks ran through the tendrils, stimulating the captain's muscle groups, sending her into rhythmic spasms like a fly trapped in a web. The stink of sweat permeated the warm air; the smell seemed genuine, unlike the sweet cloying sweat most people modified themselves to secrete. Grunts issued from the captain as she fought through an optimum set of exercises designed to give her the most effective workout.



Fisher plucked at a moist, pink muscle strand that was one fiber of the gym. It barely budged. "Strong," he said.



"Get your butt in here, Sam," Fang called. "I want you in shape for this voyage. A human sparring partner beats the heck out of vat-grown."



Fisher looked at Henderson.

He smiled, and tilted his head toward the center of the room. "The captain issued an order. Strip and climb in, Doctor."

He stood there for a moment, considering. "Now?"

Henderson shrugged. "Your things will find your quarters. Go ahead."

"Well, okay." Fisher stripped off his heavy denim, down to briefs, and stuck his clothes to the wall. Plush, rippling ruglings lined all the surfaces of the ship. They were useful things, acting as airbags when under rapid acceleration -- for instance falling down in a high gravity environment like they would find above the SS Cygni disk. In the current circumstance they would grab onto a pile of clothes like cockle burrs, taste them, and after a time pass them to their mates until back in the owner's quarters.

Fisher tentatively climbed into the flesh web, not looking very much like a spider. "I already have standard muscle enhancer mods."

"You'll need them," Henderson said.

Fang continued to grunt and sweat and spasm.

Fisher crawled toward her.

Henderson closed the portal, glad the captain hadn't asked him to work out, and went back to his lab. Sitting back on his deluxe chairbeast, he wondered if Sylvia Devereaux might be a worthy partner for him on this voyage.