Shipstar (13 page)

“Fled, as you should.” Bemore spoke kindly, shuffling his large feet in a faint echo-dance of welcome—
to soften what was to come?
“The primate ingenuity combined nonlinearly with that of the Sil, who were always an irksome and crafty kind.”

“Destabilizing,” Asenath added, “still.” But then she backed away, as if to let the twins negotiate their own newfound equilibrium. So did Unajiuhanah, with a muted bow. Memor saw this meeting was arranged to divulge information, in a way slanted to make best use of the perpetual jockeying for position in the Astronomer hierarchy—and of course, in the status of the Vaulted, who tended the most ancient records, integrating them with the emerging new.

So, take the momentum away from them. “What new wisdom intrudes?” Memor chose to use an ancient saying, said to come from the Builders, though across the sum of Bowl eras, no one truly knew.

“We fathom more of the gravitational waves, and their true origin,” Bemor said.

“As I recall, they come from Glory, or from some source well beyond,” Memor said, for this had been the received wisdom from before she was born.

“Not so,” Bemor said. “Not beyond. The source is in the immediate Glorian system.”

“There is no plausibility, as some argued, that the gravitational waves came from a chance coincidence in the sky? From some cosmological source far away?”

“Not even close. I see your early education has been a waste of time.”

Memor knew this gibe, a lancing shot at her earlier ranking in the rigorous status queue of the elect, pre-Astronomer examinations. Quadlineal calculus had always eluded her somehow, and Bemor had never let her forget it.… She now
had
to get back some position in this conversation playing out before their elders.

“But surely there cannot be heavy masses moving near a planetary system. That would render unstable the orbits of any planet nearby—”

“No, that must now be considered untrue. Facts say otherwise. We have heard from our Web trading partners.”

“What can they—?”

Bemor beamed, yet kept to his clear, factual mask. “You may recall some long Annuals ago we asked them to erect gravitational wave antennas to concentrate upon Glory. They have so done, and with felicitous trading strategies, we have secured their data.”

Very well, play for time. And
think.
“I did not know that. Expensive, I suppose?”

Bemor was enough similar that Memor could easily read the quick, darting expressions in feather-flutter—quill rattle, spines flexing so hues slid from steel blue to indigo sheen—that bespoke anticipation of an opportunity to make a veiled boast.

Asenath raised some pink neck-rustle as a deft, ironic signal. Memor realized this was what some intimates of the court termed
Status Opera,
the only true game when the social structure must remain static, for the sake of Bowl stability. Maneuver for position, yes, but carefully, deftly, for the system must always endure, above all.

Bemor was in his element, and so took his fulsome time. “I engaged three other Galactic Web partners, one of whom knew nothing of gravitational waves whatever, and how to detect them. As expected, those who did know had technologies smaller and less sensitive than ours.”

Bemor delivered this in a flat, factual way, almost offhand, and with a subtle wing-shrug—a good precursor to a revelation. Memor appreciated the method, as it was hers as well. They were twins, after all.… Though Bemor seemed to do it with more verve, as if knowing their audience would approve verve.

“I had to trade valuable arts and science to induce their cooperation,” Bemor said. “We barter and gain, delayed for many Annuals, of course. I employed a rich trading language to describe our wants, and used the artificial, intelligent agents we had installed in those societies long in the past.”

Memor was at a disadvantage here, since she had learned little of such distant diplomacies. She did know that the Ancients had seen value in establishing agents, transferred as sealed minds in code, to distant worlds. Interstellar commerce over huge distances made sense only if exchange of knowledge—arts, science, engineering, the equivalent of patents—could be traded for some return value. Such a market occurred, mediated among artificial intelligences run solely inside mutually agreed upon containment: the Mind Province established among alien societies. Elaborate protocols ensured that no artificial intelligences could run outside the Mind Province. They were safe there, too, to run their code without corruption. This protected Bowl secrets from the alien locals, and in turn, the local infosphere from the agent.

“I chose truly distant worlds for two reasons,” Bemor said. “They had to be displaced from our trajectory, so that we could gain triangulation on Glory. I then—”

“You transmitted double-encrypted?” Asenath demanded. “You are sure the gravitational wave signatures were unwrapped in secrecy by our sequestered agent?”

“I received the coded instant return notice, yes. I got it back many Annuals before the official trading partner even acknowledged receipt.”

“Meaning? That they pondered it long before even notifying us?”

Bemor was not disturbed by these thrusts; he seemed bemused. “Caution is admirable, do you not think so? The first reply came from an insectoid civilization, apparently hungry for further astronomical knowledge. They trade such wares eagerly and built the needed detectors with speed.”

“How distant are they?”

“Over a twelve-squared light-Annuals, at a high angle with respect to our trajectory. The second reply came from a similar distance and a different, large angle. We paid them with techno-lore, methods our prior history implied would interest them. These were duly lodged in the host species’ banking system. Credits not spent locally may be transmitted, securely encrypted, between solar systems, of course. Then came a third reply, also willing.”

Bemor made to condense around them a shimmering shell display of the realm around the Bowl. The three agreeable trader stars shone bright yellow, all at considerable angles away. One lay very nearly parallel to the Bowl, along the trajectory axis they followed, ending in Glory. The simulation showed message flags denoting ongoing info-commerce transporting among all three, as well as their links to the Bowl.

“So they set to work, these trade partners—”

“Ran their gravitational wave detectors. Learned our skills. And nailed firm the site of the waves. It is in our destination system—Glory.”

Memor said slowly, “Agents do amass more and more knowledge about their host species. They report back. Do these worlds have any opinion about the cause of the waves?”

Bemor looked pleased, with a body-flutter of magenta flush. To Memor this was a giveaway: a salute, really, as if to say,
I recognize!—you can leap ahead, see what’s coming.
“They could not resist diagnosing the long wavelengths and their resonances. And … there are
messages
within.”

Asenath gasped and could not resist: “Saying what?”

Bemor’s elation collapsed, his neck wattles compressing to thin red layers. “We do not know. These, too, are apparently deeply encrypted.”

Memor felt a tremor of awe, that emotion mingling fear and wonder, so seldom sensed in a calm, regular life. It swept her like a tidal slap. “Sending coded messages, by oscillating huge masses to make waves of gravity itself?—in organized ways? That is…” She was about to say,
impossible
—but caution ruled. “… improbable, in the extreme.”

Asenath added wryly, “We are approaching something strange and perhaps quite dangerous. Glory seems innocuous, but they send gravitational messages—somehow. The escaped primates are headed that way, too—or were, until they decided to land upon the Bowl of Heaven. They seem—” She preened with an oddly insulting fan-gesture, ominous and foreboding. “—ambitious.”

Memor decided not to rise to the bait. “They are able and may be of use.”

Unajiuhanah came in then with a gentle, sad wing-shrug. “I enjoy your sparring, but there are larger issues, you twins.” A nod to Asenath, to proceed. “Our larger cruising agenda, recall?”

Asenath said, “The Glorians, as we term them, have sent an electromagnetic signal.”

“Directed at us?” Unajiuhanah prompted.

“I … suppose.” Asenath looked puzzled.

“There is no distinction in spatial coordinates between the Bowl and the primate star rammer,” Bemor said. “That may explain the content.”

“Which is?” Memor asked, impatient with this parrying.

“Cartoons,” Unajiuhanah said. “Such as primitive cultures employ. They might as well be painted on cave walls, but for the fact that they move. Showing violence, often physically improbable.”

Silence. “I would truly like to know some way to discover if these abject signals are insulting, from a culture that has devolved so deeply that it thinks these are useful, or even amusing.”

Bemor said, “Beings who can hurl huge masses to make messages would not be so. All our knowledge of cultural evolution, gathered in your archives, Unajiuhanah, says so.”

“I would so believe,” Unajiuhanah said simply.

“Or else…” Memor hesitated. “We are mistaken in our assumptions.”

“Whatever can you mean?” Asenath said with a nasty rebuke-rustle.

“Suppose they are not sent to intersect us, or the star rammer.” Memor envisioned the line of sight—Glory, the Bowl, and upon it the alien ship, orbiting above … and beyond, at an unknown distance, farther from Glory … “The Glorians may be transmitting to hail and instruct, and so to warn … the primate home world.”

“But then—” Bemor hesitated. Fevered rattles came from his wing, a note of harried distress at what he glimpsed.

Imagination helps,
Memor realized. The insight had come from her Undermind, direct and unsaid until now.… She felt a rumble of discontent from deep within her—of knowledge pent up, unexpressed, and so vagrant and wild. Fear surged in her, but she suppressed it, focused on the moment. She had been in a duel with Bemor here, and now there was a sally she could use, at last, an advantage coming from within, uninspected, yet sure, she felt,
sure.

Memor said, not without some pleasure, “They are afraid not of us, but of the humans.”

PART IV

S
ENDING
S
UPERMAN

Nothing fails like success, because we do not learn anything from it. The only thing we ever learn from is failure. Success only confirms our superstitions.

—K
ENNETH
B
OULDING

FIFTEEN

It was possible to exercise at Earth gravity on
SunSeeker,
just by jogging six-minute kilometers in the direction the deck was rotating. Beth sweated but didn’t make that speed, running on the spongy turf and sucking down the chilly ship air that always seemed to taste faintly of oil. An hour into her slogging, choppy run she felt better in the odd way that returning to good gravs did—a sensation of solidity, of the body’s chugging machinery settling back into its groove. If she ran fast in the same direction the deck rotated, she increased her speed of rotation, and so increased her weight. She reversed for her hard-pounding finish. Going fast against the rotation, she nearly floated like some sticky angel on air, her bare feet barely skimming the soft fabric. She sped around the outer habitat circumference in her shorts and sopping T-shirt and lurched into the showers, gasping and happy.

The shower next to her went on. She leaned around the corner and saw a finger snake wriggling in the spray.

“Phoshtha?”

“Hello, Beth. This device is delight.” The thin, sliding voice somehow fit the dancing eyes.

“Yes, but do not use it too often. We can’t recycle the water very fast.” Beth stepped back in and turned the shower on, a giggle tickling her lips. The finger snakes had no sense of privacy.

She got herself in order, feeling much better. Exercise calmed, made her world brighter. Ready for Redwing. Maybe.

Ten minutes later she rapped on his door. He was wedged behind his desk, leaving her more room in the narrow captain’s cabin. His wall display showed the slowly passing infinities of Bowl landscapes—at the moment, low mountain ranges in a low-grav region, with cottony cloud masses stacked above them. She had seen such clouds from below while swinging through the spindly trees on vines of thin, flexing strength. The clouds were nearly as tall as Earth’s entire atmosphere, and from the ground looked like an ivory cliff that tapered away to a speck.

“Hope you’re feeling better,” Redwing, rising—unusual for him, indeed—to shake her hand. “Admirable performance down there. I’d like to get some background from you, away from the others.”

“I think if we met as a group and—”

“A unit commander always reports first.” Redwing’s crusty face wrinkled into a grin, but she knew beneath the wry, leathery look he was absolutely serious.

“Oh.”
Back in the navy we are, yessiree.

“Before we get to specifics, bring you up to speed, I want to know what it was
like
down there.”

She was prepared for this, because the shipboard crew all asked the same thing. They had spent months eating canned food and breathing desiccated air, gazing down at a whole vast
thing
gliding by, like having a terrific top view and no way out of your cramped apartment.

Still, she struggled to put the experience into words. Wonder, terror, hunger, spurts of fear, aching weariness fringed with a lacing anxiety that every time you closed your sticky eyes and fell into sweaty sleep, you could wake to find yourself about to die … “A tailored wilderness. For days you forget you’re not on an alien planet but on the skin of a furiously rotating machine. The star is always there and after a while, even after you’ve learned to sleep in shade and heat, you hate it. Darkness—I can’t tell you what a luxury it is to
turn out the light.
There’s weather, for sure, lightning that seems to be sheeting yellow all around you, and the jet—like a golden snake twisting across the sky. Always on the run, looking to see if something’s coming up on your tail to eat you, going for days without a bath, running without water even, feeling your steps get lighter because you’ve lost weight without even noticing it, hunger being sometimes the only thing you can think about—”