Edward M. Lerner (40 page)

“He didn’t hesitate to destroy Himalia without warning.” Corinne’s hands trembled a bit, still enraged after so many years. “In the end, how many thousands died from that decision?”

Himalia had been a top secret, officially undisclosed, military research facility. It was a legitimate target. For the families who had lived there, and all those lost in the aftermath, Glithwah was sorry as Mashkith had been—but the humans themselves provided an appropriate term: collateral damage. As for warnings, even among humans, declarations of war were a quaint and often discretionary concept.

She articulated neither justification, for human misunderstanding suited her purpose. Forgive me, Uncle. “Himalia: evidence of Mashkith’s single-mindedness. Implication: his readiness for application of antimatter until total victory on K’vith.”

As inaccurate and unfair to Mashkith’s memory as that impression was, Glithwah was relieved when her visitors departed espousing it.

Twenty years lost in suspended animation, twenty years stolen as prisoners of the Snakes, thirteen years gone to the construction of a new starship and the new antimatter factory to produce its fuel … Eva sympathized with the Centaurs who chose not to spend many more years to return to the Double Suns. She had worked alongside enough Centaurs to know what a wrenching decision it must have been for a crew-kindred to sunder. Those electing to stay were made welcome anywhere they chose in the solar system. They had chosen to settle here.

The Australian Outback was breathtaking.

Achingly beautiful vistas beckoned wherever one went: vast stretches of desert sand and red sandstone, rock pools and wetland wilderness, towering rock formations and great canyons. Here one encountered boab trees with their immense trunks; there, groves of old-growth mallee, each dense thicket but a single ancient tree; yet elsewhere, great stands of eucalyptus and river red-gum trees. Everywhere there were fabulous animals: crocodiles and emus, koalas and wallabies, kangaroos and wombats and platypuses. And at night, one of the brightest sparks in a crystalline sky ablaze with lights was Alpha Centauri. It was all wonderful and eerie. In its ecological wholeness, it was more novel to Eva than to the Centaur friends who took delight in showing it to her.

She hoped to find their home world as fascinating.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Allyson Walsh was taller than her father. Her hair and complexion were as dark as Art’s were Nordic. Spend ten minutes with her, though, and Art’s influence was palpable, even without knowing the young woman was an engineer. Eva and Allyson were strolling in the deepening dusk along the great salt flat that was Lake Torrens.

“This,” was a broad concept. Being a part of the first human expedition to another star. Observing firsthand the operation of the first human-built starship. Guiding the program of physical measurements and interstellar observations along the way. Collaborating at their destination with the Unity’s leading physicists—those whose insights had made the ship possible, whose quantum-gravity theory she was only now beginning, she flattered herself, to fully grasp. Cultivating the still delicate relationship with humanity’s nearest neighbors. Accompanying home good friends. “This” was all those things.

Twenty meters ahead, Art walked side by side with his son Bart. It was an evening for goodbyes, which was the true significance of Allyson’s question. “This” also meant thirty years absence from everything Eva knew, and from almost everyone she knew, including her stepson and—daughter who had come down from the moon to see them off. “Am I sure? Hell, no. But what an adventure it will be.”

“And of course there is no stopping Dad. I’m glad you’ll be together.” Allyson cocked her head. “Although how Dr. Claustrophobe plans to handle fourteen years each way cooped inside a flying pebble is a mystery to me.”

“Believe me, I’ve asked him that. After the tenth try, I got a credible answer. Art said, ‘Life within a fraction of a cubic kilometer of rock
will
get to me. When it does, remind me that just outside are trillions of klicks of emptiness in every direction. Remind me we’ve all been forced until now to spend our lives trapped in one little solar system.

“‘A galaxy should be roomy enough even for me.’”

Hard ceiling rails and padded bucket seats; potted ornamental dwarf bluefruit vines and no-nonsense holo status displays; photonic and biocomp components commingled beneath the sculpted plasteel panels of control consoles … here on the bridge, the collaborative nature of
New Beginnings
was unmistakable. The ship soon to take them home was a joint effort with the United Planets. Not for the first time, Gwu thought how auspiciously named was the human polity—and how different everything would have been if Sol had been
Harmony
’s chosen destination.

“I never thought we’d get here.” Art Walsh floated nearby, at more or less right angles to Gwu, a big smile on his face. “It’s been a long time coming.”

Not nearly as long as for the crew-kindred, many of whom bustled around her tending to last-moment details. Too long, in fact, for many. Gwu could openly admit to sadness at the coming separation; she shared only with Swee her touch of envy. How wonderful it would have been to stay and explore. But for all the temptation, her commitment to duty never wavered. She would bring home everyone who wished to return. “Great rewards merit great efforts.”

“Fair enough. Be right back.” Art shoved off to consult on yet another calibration check of the main comm console. All around her, small clusters, more often humans and crew-kindred together than groups of either species alone, murmured purposefully.

In a saner universe, the main holo would have celebrated nearby Saturn in all its ringed glory. Instead, that display presented the many warships swarming around
New Beginnings
and Prometheus, the little moon on which their antimatter had been produced.

Eva Walsh-Gutierrez and Swee emerged from the central-core elevator, back from inspecting the engine room. Swee swung gracefully from rail to rail to rail, stopping at Gwu’s side. “We can fine-tune forever. My opinion is we leave now and putter later.” He entwined a tentacle in one of hers. “What says the ka?”

“That she is eager to see the Double Suns again.” She called out to all on the bridge, “Stations, everyone.”

Gwu polled: power, propulsion, comm, navigation, trim and spin, ecosystems, logistics. Everyone was ready. Art and Eva settled into human chairs to one side of her. Swee took his place on her other side.

“We did it, you know,” Swee said. “Nothing happened as we expected, and too many were taken from us—yet we did everything and more that we set out to accomplish. The technology is proven. We leave behind our first colony. We return home with new friends.”

“The birth of an era,” Art agreed. “We’ve been privileged to see the beginning of a true interstellar civilization, so much more than an interstellar comm network. A new order of things.”

Gwu had one final check to make. “System integration, what is our overall status?”

T’bck Ra’s synthesized voice was loud and clear. “Everything is operational and ready.”

“I ask everyone to observe a moment of silence for those who fell along the way.” As so many had, across so many light-years. Then, with a single joyous word, Gwu began their journey.

“Engage.”

Arblen Ems Firh Glithwah, Foremost, as she always did before leaving her office, took a moment to study the desolate topography outside the well-insulated windows. While she had labored, a bit more of the ancient crater had been disturbed in the never-ending quest for metallic ores. A little more of the moon’s icy surface had been strip-mined for precious volatiles. Another new edifice had begun to emerge in the distance, much of its structure made of the fused tailings from continuous tunneling and mining. We are prospering here, she thought, and the humans do not understand the consequences of that prosperity. They lack the long view.

Times were hard when Glithwah was little. Her parents worked two of three shifts to survive, leaving her often in Great-Grandfather’s charge. Few of those early memories were happy, but there were exceptions. One exception was Great-Grandfather patiently introducing her to b’tok. “The game of Foremosts,” he often called it.

Had she finally attained Great-Grandpa’s standard? She would never know. He had died with most of her family, in a far-off crash into what would become known as
Victorious
.

Fifteen standard years ago
Victorious
had been abandoned, making today yet again a day of interviews. She picked up the black queen, which stood forlornly on a corner of her desk. She restored the piece to its accustomed place of show, blink-blinking. Chess was all about constraints. Everything in chess was bounded by sixty-four squares, the prescribed capabilities of thirty-two predefined pieces, a time limit. Despite all the vitality of their civilization, all their expanding wealth, all the upheaval wrought by the arrival of
Victorious
, human thinking remained, if not static, almost always short-term.

Mashkith had never shared his long-term plans with her. Perhaps Uncle had disclosed them to no one. Anyone to whom he might have communicated them had surely outranked her—and was doubtless among the dead. But she knew her uncle—and she, like he, knew to plan for the long run.

Many questions had been posed to her today. As always, a few topics were uncomfortable. As always, the humans missed the crucial point. Perhaps the matter was obvious only to those who thought dynamically: What if, during the long absence of
Victorious
, an at-home clan obtained antimatter technology? It might have been independently developed, or stolen anew from a second herd starship, or purchased over InterstellarNet, or even transmitted freely and vengefully to K’vith by those thirsting for retribution against Arblen Ems.

That risk alone precluded a return home.

The clan dared not go—and dared not remain—any place where vastly superior numbers held, or might obtain, technological near-parity. As certain as Glithwah was about anything in this universe, their initial course towards K’vith was misdirection. Mashkith would have changed course soon after
Victorious
receded beyond human observation.

InterstellarNet was a yellow-sun club; K’rath was the single red-dwarf star home to a member species. Mashkith had surely planned to take them to another nearby red dwarf. She guessed the star known to the humans as Lacaille 9352, more distant from herd, human, and Hunter suns than all those stars from each other. And if not Lacaille 9352, other red dwarf suns had been within their cruising range.

Thereafter, even if their new colony were prematurely observed, who would invest the decades and treasure necessary to pursue them?

Exploiting the uncontested resources of an entire solar system, the secrets of antimatter and the interstellar drive, and time, there was no limit to what the reborn Arblen Ems might have accomplished. Perhaps, in a few generations, even a triumphant return to K’vith….

A scoopship passed overhead, delivering essential energy supplies. A human scoopship. Only in her thoughts did Glithwah bare her teeth and growl. She could be under observation at all times. She acted accordingly.

Someday, the well-behaved, increasingly prosperous survivors of the Himalia Incident—or if need be, their descendants—would have the humans’ trust. Someday, the spaceships that frequented Ariel would be controlled and flown by Hunters. Someday, the clan would freely roam this solar system. And someday, another starship would come within their grasp.

Arblen Ems was twice before a Great Clan. It will be a Great Clan again.

Copyright © 2006 Edward M. Lerner