Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

life-support facilities.”
    A horrified gasp went up from the crowd. “That means killing a part of the trunk,” Orris said grimly. “The tree will seal off the living cambium there with a protective barrier. If the crew can’t get into a habitable zone of the tree from outside …” He trailed off.
    Penser continued to pace. He might have been thinking aloud, except that his voice was pitched like an actor’s to carry.
    “That leaves the Nar operating personnel at various points in the tree. There are no more than twenty of them, performing caretaker services, and we know where their stations are. We will move to gain possession of these control points. We have key people of our own—human beings—who are able to monitor the tree’s functions.”
    He paused. Bram, though he was too far away to see the expression on Penser’s face, could imagine him smiling thinly. “We had seven years to study the problem, you see, on our journey here from Juxt. The Nar crew members were most obliging about showing passengers around and explaining how things worked. Running a tree is not at all complicated. For those metabolic functions where we will initially require some slight assistance, we will retain the Nar technician and persuade him to help us. As for the others, we will dispense with their services.”
    There were shouts from up front, and Penser cocked his head. The questioners sorted themselves out, and Bram heard someone yell: “What do you mean, dispense with their services?”
    Penser raised his hands and quieted everyone down. “We will harm no Nar unless it becomes necessary,” he said. “They will be put in space suits and cast overboard. They may have an uncomfortable time of it, but eventually rescue craft from Lowstation will pick them up.”
    “I don’t like the sound of this,” Orris said.
    “Neither do I,” Bram agreed. Orris had not seen how ruthless the Penserites could be. Bram had.
    There were more yells from up front. “Where are you taking the tree?” someone demanded.
    Penser was patient. Questions at this point created a certain level of involvement that made it possible for him to stage-manage events the way he wanted them.
    “To a world that will be humanity’s own,” he said affably.
    “There’s no such world! Not close enough, anyway! We’d be old or dead by the time we got there!”
    A man sprang to the base of the platform, shaking his fist. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? To have us live and breed aboard this tree and sail on into space forever! Never to set foot on a world again!” He appealed to the crowd. “I know these people! They’re fanatics! They make the Resurgists look like Partnerites. They’ll do anything to get away from the Nar!”
    Bram waited for the bullyboys to drag the man away and club him into silence. But Penser was still being expansive. He waved the crowd into silence. “There is such a world, I promise you,” he said. “And you will not have to spend your lifetimes getting there. You will have your new world in no longer than it would have taken you to reach Juxt One.”
    “Where?” the calls came. “Where is it?”
    “It is not time for you to know that,” Penser said. “When the tree is secure, when I can be sure that no one can inform the Nar of our plans, when we have broken loose from planetary orbit and are beyond any danger of interception—then you will all be informed.”
    “Where is it?” Bram asked Kerthin. “Is it a moon in the Juxt system?”
    “N-no,” she said. “He tried that. It all fell apart. That’s why he came here. He didn’t have the right population base, the right conditions to make it work. He’s thought it out very carefully. It’s one of the worlds of the lesser sun. Even without building up to interstellar velocities, we’d be there in less than a year.”
    “It’s not Ilf?” Bram said in amazement. “Ilf’s more heavily populated with Nar even than Juxt One.”
    “No,” Kerthin said. “It’s one of the moons of the gas giant. It’s only a mining world, but it’s already been partially terraformed by the sulfur-and iron-metabolizing mining bacteria it was seeded with. It has a very small Nar population. The human population is even smaller, but it’s mostly bunched together in a couple of settlements. The Nar population is dispersed all over the moon. Penser thinks he can strike quickly before they have time to get organized. He’ll have had months to whip the