Starfarers (48 page)

“(Correct,)” Brent said. “(They might well reveal the plan to Nansen. Therefore we will keep them ignorant of it until the thing is done.)”

Dismay? The Tahirians parleyed again, almost frantically.

Yet, shocking though the thought was, it could not have been altogether unawaited. These beings must have disputed among each other, politely but with a bitterness underneath that perhaps grew as great as in any human.

They steadied and turned back to Brent. “(How can we avoid their sensing that something is afoot?)” Ivan asked. “(They will inquire what it is. If we three are less than candid, or refuse outright, they will become suspicious, and report their misgivings to the Nansen group.)”

Brent shivered with a momentary thrill, “(I have considered this,)” he replied. “(Let me convey to them your request that they avoid you for a number of daycycles while you develop a stronger argument than hitherto in favor of aborting the mission.)”

Over the years he had learned enough Tahirian psychology to know that that would not appear unreasonable. The mere presence of an opponent was an emotional and semantic distraction: if nothing else, by involuntary scent emissions, which had the effect of loud heckling or even of interference that distorted the meaning of an utterance. It could rouse anger that might in time go out of control. No wonder the culture set such a high value on consensus.

“(I can arrange new, separate quarters for them, if all five of you tell Nansen you desire it,)” Brent went on. “(Simon is busy with Sundaram, and Cleland, our ally, will keep Emil
engaged, so neither ought to feel offended or deprived. Nansen cannot forbid you to think and speak freely under the conditions that best suit you.)” Besides, that idea wouldn’t likely occur to the captain.

Ivan made a sound and gesture that apparently corresponded to a human “Hmm.” En stood for a while, thoughtful, before saying, with a possible touch of humor, “(Furthermore, settled together apart from the rest of us, they may well develop a mating urge, which would keep them still more preoccupied.)”

Peter expressed an objection in Cambiante. “(No young should be born out here.)”

“(Absolutely not,)” Leo agreed. “(All the more reason to hasten our return.)”

Ivan moved a pace closer to Brent. “(Tell us your proposal,)” en said.

With Sundaram
and Simon already there, Dayan and Nansen crowded the workroom. Ventilation overburdened, the air quickly grew thick and hot. Necks craned, eyes squinted at the enigmas on the screen. But the physicist needed to see as well as be told, and she had insisted that the captain deserved to share the revelation. As it burst upon them, discomfort fled from their awareness.

“Yes, you are not merely welcome on this team, Hanny, you are vital,” Sundaram assured her. “Communication has been progressing incredibly fast We have reached a point where the computer programs are no longer adequate to deduce meanings. I believe you alone can modify them, as well as make a unique personal contribution.”

Pressed against Nansen, she trembled. “I’ve gathered you’re starting to … hear … what the beings are?” she asked rather than said.

“Yes. I do apologize for not keeping everyone au courant, but we are overwhelmed with input and—I have sufficient physics background to see that what is being described to us is not molecular, atomic, or—I think—nuclear, not any kind
of material configuration, but sets of quantum states. Beyond that, Simon and I are lost.”

“Quantum states of what?” wondered Nansen. “The plasma in the accretion disk?”

“That doesn’t sound likely,” Dayan replied. “Unless it has more structure, more complexity, than I expect is possible. If only Colin were here! Two ways of looking at reality, two different concepts of it—”

His hand touched hers. “Don’t underrate yourself, Hanny.”

Gazing at the symbols, sight sinking into the depths of the screen, she murmured, “I have speculated a little lately, since you dropped a few hints, Ajit. Quantum states in the vacuum, the sea of virtual particles … under the conditions of convoluted, changeable space-time near the black hole. … A quantum state can hold and carry information as well as matter can. Maybe better. … What is life if not information? … But how strange are we to them?”

“Perhaps not entirely strange.” Nansen’s voice shook. “Perhaps we will discover not just what they are, but what we are.
Dios mío
, what this could mean! Surely now everyone aboard will want to see it through.”

The machine
shop was spacious but well filled; its equipment, mostly robotic, some nanotechnic, might have to make a variety of things. An area offside was reserved for handwork. Brent sat on a stool at a bench, fitting together items that had been produced for him. Electronic parts from stock lay waiting. A computer displayed the diagram that guided his hands.

Chancing to have an errand there, Yu spied light beyond the big shapes. She wove her way between lathe, drill press, and drop hammer to see what it meant. Brent heard her and looked around.

“Good day watch,” she greeted. “What are you doing?”

He smiled the smile of his that charmed. “Occupying my time. Usefully, I hope.”

She glanced at the bench. A cylindrical frame, about three
centimeters by fifty, rested half assembled. It was clear that after the circuitry and powerpack were installed, the frame would be completed, an organometallic skin attached, and a stock with a grip fitted. “What is this, if I may ask?”

“Well, I didn’t plan to say anything till it was ready, but no reason not to tell you. It’s nothing startling. The computer easily designed it to my specs. Check the program if you like. I’m cobbling together a prototype to test how the hardware behaves in practice. It’s a short-range radionic override for simple cybernetic systems—for instance, doors, locks, cooling fans, gas filters, conveyors.”

“You want to be able to take over control of them? Why?” she asked, nonplussed.

He laughed. “Not I! But the station—” He laid down a spot catalyzer, turned toward her, and spoke earnestly. “The black hole’s thrown a lot of surprises at us. They cost us several probes, a boat, and two lives. What’s next? What might it derange in the station, given that close orbit? A small but critical item could suddenly go wild or inoperable. Something like a stuck flowgate, maybe. Under the wrong circumstances, that could bring on a disaster.”

She frowned in skepticism. “The station’s well-built for homeostasis and self-repair, you know.”

“Oh, yes. But what harm in one more emergency backup? If this thing seems practical, we can transmit the plans and have the machines there make a few for the maintenance robots to use if it’s ever necessary.”

“If.”

“It gives me something to do,” he said.

Sympathy answered: “I understand, Al. Yes, carry on.”

“Not makework, either. Not quite. It could prove helpful. Unlikely, but it could. Having gotten the idea, I’d feel remiss if I didn’t develop it.”

She regarded him. “That is good of you.”

He smiled again. “Considering that I’d rather we go straight home? Well, since the decision went against me, I’ll do my best for the ship and the mission.” In a near whisper: “Jean and Colin’s mission.”

Her tone softened further. “We have misunderstood you, Al.”

He shrugged. “Or maybe I’ve misunderstood me. Anyhow, call this a gesture, if nothing else.” He paused. “Please don’t tell anybody. I’d like to spring it as a surprise.”

“When we are all together,” she proposed. “In the wardroom. Turning a mess meal into a feast of reconciliation.”

“Aw, that’s too fancy a word.”

“I’ll help you arrange your surprise,” she offered.

The medical
center consisted of an office and, behind a door, a sick bay as well equipped as most hospitals had been on Earth. Mokoena found Cleland there. He rose.

“I’m sorry I’m late, Tim,” she said. “Hanny caught me, and I couldn’t break away. It was too important. Too fascinating, to be honest. You’d told me your problem isn’t urgent.”

“N-no harm done. What was the, uh, distraction? Something to do with the aliens?”

“What else?” Ardor radiated from her. “Quantum life—She wants me to list whatever analogies I can with organic biology. No, not analogies. Correspondences? Basic principles? Oh, Tim, we’re at the dawn of a revolution like nothing since they identified DNA!”

“We can’t stay here forever,” he groaned.

“No, no. Just long enough to—” She stopped and looked more closely at him. He stood clean and properly clad, in his careless fashion. But the face was haggard, with a tic in the right cheek, and the hands shook slightly. “Never mind,” she said. “Here, sit down.” He resumed the edge of his chair. She settled behind her desk. “What is your trouble, dear?”

“I’m feeling worse and worse. Jitters, insomnia, nightmares when I do sleep.”

“It shows. I’ve been more and more worried about you. And you’re off alone with Emil so much of the time. Nothing wrong with that, but you hardly have a word for your fellow humans.”

“I feel trapped.”

She nodded. “I know. Listen. Selim Zeyd has accepted the situation. He’s adjusting to it, making the best of it. Al Brent seems to be doing likewise. You are whipping yourself to pieces. Tim, you must change your attitude.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Well,” she told him briskly, “you did have the sense to consult me before I hounded you into it. We’ll do a physical examination today. If your ills are psychosomatic, as I expect, I’ll put you on a euthymic. And we can talk, of course, anytime you wish.”

He tried to meet her eyes. “I think, uh, I think it’d help if you explain to the others—I’m not being unfriendly, I simply can’t handle sociability.”

“Withdrawing into your shell is no medicine.”

“Why not? Till I, uh, get my thoughts sorted out. Actually, I’m, uh, fairly at ease with Al.”

“M-m, yes, you two always have been close. Complementary personalities? Well, if he’s adapting, maybe he can teach you something.” Mokoena rose. “Come, let’s start that examination”

In this guise Cleland got the excuse he wanted, to be absent from mess or other gatherings whenever he chose, to shun conversation and evade questions, to prefer the company of Brent or a Tahirian, without arousing suspicion.

Nightwatch: stillness
in empty passageways. Brent stood with Ivan, Leo, and Peter before the arms locker.

His device unsecured the door. It slid aside, the alarm silenced. Light fell in on racked, darkly gleaming barrels. Boxes and powerpacks filled shelves, like hunched beasts.

His companions were tensed. A smell of fear blew from them. “(These are not for us,)” Ivan spelled.

“(They should not be for anyone,)” Brent said. “(I have explained that we brought weapons in case of unforeseeable dangers. Nuclear missiles for the ship; small arms against ferocious wild animals or something equivalent.
We here must make sure they are not used on sentient beings.)”

Peter’s mane bristles stiff. “(Could they be?)”

“(Yes.)”

“(How innately violent and irrational is your species?)”

“(Some of us are, some are not. For most, it depends on upbringing and circumstances. Once Tahir, too, knew bloodshed)”—though never on the scale that Earth did, again and again and again. “(Now let us work fast. Quietly but fast.)”

Brent stepped into the locker and passed the weapons out. His fingers lovingly stroked the first several. The Tahirians loaded them onto a cart.

Having closed the door, he would conduct them to the shuttle docked on this side of the gap, and they would conceal their booty inside it. Come mornwatch, the Tahirians would do what they had arranged with Nansen, cross over to the hull. Ostensibly it would be to fetch biotechnic gear of their own stowed there, they having decided to run experiments on terrestrial bacteria for the sake of science and to pass the time. They would indeed bring the stuff back. But first they would have carried the weapons to a hiding place Brent had shown them on a display of the ship’s plan.

It was probably needless, but a strategist should provide for all contingencies he could imagine. The hour might come when he was glad the Tahirians, too, had no ready access to an arsenal.

They saw him emerge from the gun-empty locker with a twin-load machine pistol and a box each of disabling and killing cartridges. “(What do you want those for?)” Ivan demanded.

“(To make certain,)” Brent said, tucking them under his cloak.

Certain that he would have the sole firearm.

Daywatch and
evenwatch followed.

Cleland led
Emil and Simon to the Tahirian section. He had sought them out earlier and asked them to meet him at this time. He would accompany them back to their fellows, he said, and act as human representative while the new arguments for termination were presented to them.

It was pathetically easy to deceive Tahirians. They had such vague notions of deliberate falsehood; and they could not read any nuances of human expressions, intonations, body language, only the most stereotyped attitudes and the bald Cambiante.

Ivan, Leo, and Peter promptly surrounded them. Cleland stood by to help in case they resisted. It trumpeted in him: he was no longer passive, a victim; he was taking action.

Illumination fell
gentle over white napery and shining tableware. Yellow, lavender, and purple clustered in a centerpiece of chrysanthemums from one of the gardens. Bottles stood open, cabernet sauvignon breathing, to go with the roast whose fragrance drifted out of the galley—synthetic, made by the nanos, but identical with the original, and no creature had had to die. It was Nansen’s turn to select background music, and Vivaldi’s “Concerto in G Major” danced for whoever cared to listen.

At this hour the captain felt its lightheartedness was no mockery. Since the tremendous news of quantum-level intelligence broke, moods had soared. Mostly.

His glance went down the table. No garb quite matched the formality of his blue dress uniform, but everybody was in good clothes. On his right, Ruszek chatted with Mokoena and with Zeyd beside her—not exactly cheerfully, yet it was more than the mate had done for a number of daycycles. On his left Yu and Sundaram glowed in their mild way. He wished Dayan, beyond them, were at his side; she had thrown off her own depression and talked enthusiastically whenever she got an opening, about the research and everything else that came to mind.