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Lennie says it was j-just thirty-seven revolutions of his native
planet which means f-f-fifty-three Terrestrial years ago, she was
found by an Interplanetary scout called _Crusoe_.
Judging by the colonel's expression this data is Classified; he does
not know that Lennie's family come from one of the oldest settled
planets and are space-goers to a man, woman, and juvenile; they pick
up ship gossip the way others hear about the relations of people next
door.
Lennie goes on to say that the Explorer Class were the first official
exploration ships sent out from Earth when the Terries decided to find
out what happened to the colonies formed during the Exodus.
_Gilgamesh_ was the first to re-make contact with Garuda, Legba,
Lister, Cor-bis and Antelope; she vanished on her third voyage.
"Where was she found?" asks Eru.
"Near the p-p-pole of an uninhabited planet--maybe I shouldn't say
where because that may be secret, but the rest's History if you know
where to look."
* * * * *
Maybe the colonel approves this discretion; anyway his face thaws very
slightly unless I am Imagining it.
"_Gilgamesh_ crashed," he says. "Near as we can make out from the log,
she visited Seleucis system. That's a swarmer sun. Fifty-seven
planets, three settled; and any number of fragments. The navigator
calculated that after a few more revolutions one of the fragments was
going to crash on an inhabited planet. Might have done a lot of
damage. They decided to tow it out of the way.
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"Grappling-beams hadn't been invented. They thought they could use
Mass-Time on it a kind of reverse thrust--throw it off course.
"Mass-Time wasn't so well understood then. Bit off more than they
could chew. Set up a topological relation that drained all the free
energy out of the system. Drive, heating system--everything.
"She had emergency circuits. When the engines came on again they took
over--landed the ship, more or less, on the nearest planet. Too late,
of course. Heating system never came on--there was a safety switch
that had to be thrown by hand. She was embedded in ice when she was
found. Hull breached at one point--no other serious damage."
"And the ... the crew?"
Dillie ought to know better than that.
"Lost with all hands," says the colonel.
"How about weapons?"
We are all startled. Cray is looking whitish like the rest of us but
maintains his normal manner, i.e. offensive affection while pointing
out that _Gilgamesh_ can hardly be taken for a Menace unless she has
some means of aggression about her.