Donald Moffitt - Genesis 02

backplate. “We should have burned them with the photon drive instead of being so finicky about where we aimed it,” Trist said.
    “Now who’s being bloodthirsty?” Bram said. “It wouldn’t have made any difference. Their father ship’s dropped bubbles all around the rim, and even if we’d spent a year in orbit around the disk, there’d be other ships, now that they’ve found the way.”
    “That’s not what I mean,” Trist said. “The dragonflies are now in possession of the diskworld transmission apparatus. What if some day it occurs to them to use it?”
    It was a horrifying thought. “It would take thousands of years to get the disks into operating condition,” Bram said.
    “The universe has got thousands of years,” Trist said.
    “Before the dragonflies could seed the universe with their kind,” Mim said, “their transmissions would have to reach a race advanced enough to synthesize their DNA. And what race would be that naive?”
    “The Nar created us, Mim,” Trist said. “And we gave them Penser.”
    “You may be overlooking one thing, Trist,” Bram said. “Before you can induce another species to unriddle your genetic code, you’ve got to be able to communicate with them. And the dragonflies aren’t very good at that. In fact, they may be inherently incapable of it.”
    “They won’t need to broadcast their genetic code,” Trist said grimly. “They’ll just spread from star to star. And when their ships are good enough they’ll reach other galaxies the way we did.”
    “Don’t be so gloomy, Trist,” Marg said. “You’ll spoil the party.”
    “Sorry, Marg.” He swallowed the last of his elderberry wine. “I think I’ll get myself another drink. Who’ll join me?”
    Before he could carry out his intention, Jun Davd came hurrying into the lounge, followed by an assistant. He spoke briefly to the assistant, who nodded and went to the holo to make some kind of adjustment; then Jun Davd came through the crowd to Bram and his group.
    “You’ll want to see this,” he said. “We’ve been tracking the dragonfly father ship for the past few hours. They’ve finished seeding the rim with their spawning bubbles, evidently, and they’re ready to go on to the next diskworld. They’ve been following the rim around, using their fusion engine to build up velocity.”
    “Oh, no!” Mim exclaimed.
    “They’ve sterilized a swath over ten million miles long so far.”
    “Why … they’ll burn their own colonies,” Orris said.
    “No, they shut down when they drop one,” Jun Davd said. “They’re not mindless, you know.”
    “Not when it involves their own species,” Trist said tightly.
    “They’re flying low,” Jun Davd went on, as if he were discussing an abstract problem in ballistics. “The interesting thing is that they haven’t passed under a moon yet. It’s over twenty-two million miles between moons. Ah, here we are. We’re picking them up now.”
    The telescopic display at the end of the lounge jiggled and blurred, then centered on a brilliant spark skimming the top of the fantastic wall that stretched across the stars. People stopped their conversation to look.
    “They’re awfully close to the rim edge, aren’t they?” Trist observed, his face suddenly alight with interest.
    “Yes, aren’t they?” Jun Davd said.
    The spark died without warning. Bram could see the ship itself, a tiny splinter that he knew was twenty miles long from end to end. The cluster of bubbles at one end didn’t seem appreciably smaller. It was hard to tell. The few dozen that might have been expended on this world still left hundreds with which to seed the rest of the system.
    “They’re not cutting it too fine,” Jun Davd drawled. “They’re about a half million miles from their first colony next to our digs. They’re closing at a hundred miles per second. It won’t be many minutes longer now.”
    The ellipsoidal moon hovered, waiting. The dragonfly ship was going to pass under its pointed end. Even at the scale of distance involved, the progress of the bubble-ended splinter seemed swift.
    “They’re going to—” Mim said, and bit her lip.
    The splinter hurtled onward, its axis aimed obliquely in preparation for the escape orbit that would take it to the next big disk of the outer trio. The angle gave it a wider cross section along its line of flight. That would make matters worse, Bram thought.
    At the last moment, a dragonfly eye must have seen a hairline