Cosmonaut Keep by Ken MacLeod

ancestors, the original crew, on their first arrival. In his long acquaintance with humans he'd acquired a better head for the hemp than most of his kind, and was now relaxed, rather than comatose in the servants' hall like the others.
    Cairns nursed his brandy and cigar, in the chair nearest the dying fire. Margaret sat on the floor, resting against the chair's arm, basking in the embers' heat. Tharovar squatted at his other hand. The others gazed unseeing into the fire for a while: Driver, and Andrei Volkov, and Larisa Telesnikova, and Jean-Pierre Lemieux. Those all had partners or lovers who were from outside the notional, hereditary crew -- the cosmonaut cadre -- and who had tactfully left them to their private thoughts and conversation.
    Driver looked around the depleted company and cleared his throat, spat into the fire. Sputum sizzled horribly for a second or two.
    "Well," he said, "I got an interesting offer from Tenebre."
    "A different one from the ones he was making at the table?" asked Volkov.
    Driver nodded. "He picked a quieter moment ... What he offered was to pay us well -- for shipping. He could make it very advantageous for us to go into the carrying trade."
    Low and bitter laughter greeted this statement.
    Cairns felt Margaret grip his ankle, and relaxed his own grip, unconsciously fastened on her shoulder.
    "So what did you say to that?"
    Driver shrugged, a movement exaggerated by the padded shoulders of his loosened doublet. "I ... temporized, but gave him to understand we'd be interested."
    "What?" Cairns almost shouted. The others sat up in their seats, equally agitated. Driver regarded them all with a sardonic smile.
    "We always knew it would come to this sometime," he said mildly. "We've prepared for it." He fixed Cairns with a reproving look. "After a fashion. So -- what progress do you have to report, Navigator?"
    James waited for a second or two; Margaret was urgently stroking his foot, and the gentle touch calmed him a little, not much. Tharovar sat tense and rigid beside him; the tendons in the saur's thin neck were like taut wires, and his mouth was, if possible, thinner than usual.
    "Come off it, Hal," Cairns said. "For decades now it's been little more than a gods-damned hobby, as you well know. It's not easy to interest the younger members of the family in the" -- his lips curled -- "Great Work, and it gets more tedious with every computer that breaks down and can't be repaired. Every so often somebody shamefacedly turns in a few pages of logic or math. Christ Almighty, I could sometimes swear the paper has had tears fall on it, like some kid's exercise book. I put them together in order, I file them, I pass out a few more problems, and they take even longer to come back. People have other priorities, other opportunities, and more as time goes on."
    Only the knowledge of how pathetic, how feeble it would sound, made him refrain from adding, What else can I do? He hated hearing himself make excuses; it wasn't his manner, not his style at all, not part of the program. Not done, old chap. But it was true, and Driver knew it was true, and Cairns knew that he knew.
    So he concluded by saying, confidently and aggressively, his oldest excuse of all, a Navigator family joke:
    "I'm an artist, not a technician."
    That got a laugh -- even Driver had to smile -- and the tension eased. Larisa Telesnikova took the opportunity to lean forward and speak diplomatically.
    "Okay, comrades," she began, as she usually did when talking seriously to any gathering larger than two, "what this means is that we don't know what progress may have been made by now. Why don't we use the formal reception for the merchants to invite as many as possible of the Navigator's family, and ask them to bring their latest results, even their latest workings?"
    "Better than nothing," agreed Driver.
    "That's all very well," said Cairns, "but I don't hold out much hope." He glared at Driver. "As you well know. And what will you tell your