Swallow the Sky: A Space Opera (12 page)

“Oh, no. There’s no point
in both getting caught.”

“Yes there is. This is my
mess as well as yours – I’m the one the old bastard tried to kill. I owe Juro
and I intend to repay him. Anyhow, I’m supposed to be your clan Aniko minder. It
would seem very odd to let you lift the tapes without me being there.”

“Then God help both of
us.”

The next day Carson and
Aiyana presented themselves at the Scholars desk of the Archives
Administration. The previous evening they had taken out the best insurance
policy they could think of: using an attorney functionality they had sworn a
joint statement describing the entire conspiracy. The heavily encrypted record
was now held by the valet service with instructions to send it to the
authorities if they did not checkin the following afternoon.

The administration
offices were located in a corner of the Great Museum. Built round the site of
the first settlement, the huge building was one of the most popular
destinations for visitors to New Earth. Each year, millions of people streamed
through the galleries to see the surviving relics of the early colonists,
little realizing that most of the collection was beneath their feet.

“Physically access the
Teng cassettes?” the administrator said “may I ask why Professor Carson?”

“As you know, I wrote a
paper on Teng’s recording device, I am planning a follow-up paper on the media
he used.”

There was a pause while
she checked the records.

“Ah yes. However – this
is embarrassing – last year there was an attempt to steal one the cassettes. You
probably never heard about it; I see you were off planet at the time and the
Council hardly likes to publicize these things, but now there is a policy
requiring a member of staff to be present throughout any examination. I
apologize, but rules are rules. If you wait here a moment I will see who is
available to accompany you.”

The administrator
disappeared into an office.

“Oh hell” Carson muttered.

“Don’t worry” Aiyana said
hurriedly “I’ll distract them. Just be ready to make the switch.”

The official re-entered
with a second member of staff.

“This is Curator Lalita,
she will escort you.”

A few minutes later they
were in an elevator heading down to the vaults. Upon stepping out they were
confronted by a security check point. Everyone re-identified themselves and
walked slowly through the scanners.

“I called ahead to the
keepers, honored scholars, everything should be ready” Lalita said as they
entered the preparation room. Here they donned surgical gloves and a small
portable breathing apparatus consisting of a transparent face mask that
connected by hose to a lightweight backpack.

The trio walked down
appeared to be a vacuum access tube to yet another checkpoint in front of a
heavily armored door.

“The entire storage
facility floats on push drives to physically isolate it from the surrounding
sedimentary rock. A ten megaton blast on the surface above would hardly
register, although earthquakes are the real concern.”

At the Curator’s signal
the vault door slid aside and they pushed through the inertial field into a
huge circular room.

“We are now in a sterile
helium atmosphere. Keep your face masks on at all times.”

The walls that surrounded
them housed thousands of sealed draws scaling from the size of a hand to ones as
big as a truck. Their face masks had some built-in intelligence and wherever
they looked a discrete display appeared describing the draw’s contents.

- Hand-carried voice
communicator

- Stringed musical
instrument

- Medical device for imaging
internal organs

- Portable fusion
reactor

- Food preparation
utensils

Aiyana gazed around in
wonder. This was the greatest concentration of treasure in the entire galaxy:
the cargo of the Yongding – everything that was left of Old Earth.

A small container was
waiting on a central table. Lalita picked it up and carried it to an anteroom
where she set it down and with wincing care took out the Teng two cassettes. She
placed them on a table in front of Carson.

“You have one hour,
honored scholar.”

Carson unpacked the items
he had put in the fake academic case: a small personal console, a recorder, and
another small device.

“This is a Huan analyzer
capable of remotely scanning for rare earths” he said, holding it up for
inspection. “My research has suggested that the tape emulsion may contain
Neodymium, even though it is not mentioned in the Archives catalog.”

While Aiyana and Lalita
made polite conversation Carson rooted around in the bottom of his bag
ostensibly searching for a second mini-recorder. In reality he was opening the
secret compartment ready for quick access.

After that Carson began going through the motions of setting up and calibrating his equipment. He
checked the time. When was Aiyana going to produce this diversion? They only
had an hour for God’s sake.

Twenty long minutes
passed until Aiyana let out a gasp of pain and placed her hand to her chest. Startled,
both Carson and Lalita swung round and stared at her.

“I’m sorry” she said “I
performed the Ritual of the Funeral Pyre yesterday and the burn is troubling
me. Honored curator, could you help me for a moment?”

With that Aiyana began to
unfasten the top of her coveralls but moments later she stopped and stared at
Carson.

“Professor,
please!
”

Lalita snorted and
positioned her broad back to block Carson’s view while she inspected the wound.

“The burn appears healthy
to me” she said. “Give it a day or two and I’m sure it will be alright.”

“Thank you, you’re so
kind.”

Lalita favored Carson with another glare and resumed her seat. Doing his best to look chastened, he
returned to his studies. It had taken him just seven seconds to make the
switch.

The next thirty minutes
were agonizing. Everyone who was granted access to the Archives used every
minute of their allotted time and there was no question of leaving until the
hour was completed. Finally Carson was able to repack the bag. Lalita tenderly
placed the fake cassettes into their container and led them out of the vault. Ten
minutes later they were walking briskly away from the Archives Building, doing
their best not to break into a run.

“Aiyana my darling,
you’re a genius” Carson said.

“I got my inspiration
from you, you dirty old man.”

“Well my brilliant
partner, the next stop is Kalidas’s apartment. I’d rather be carrying a lump of
radium than these cassettes.”

The renegade historian
was incandescent with excitement.

“You got them? Oh my
God!”

Kalidas circled the
carpet, too agitated to say or do anything. Finally he began to calm down.

“I’ve been preparing for
you.”

The adjacent room in his
apartment was lined with plastic sheeting; it had been emptied of everything except
for a cylindrical machine resting on a new workbench. Carson could see the
shimmer of an inertial field across the doorway.

“It may not be up to the
standards of the Archives but it will do.”

Kalidas pulled on a
breathing apparatus similar to the ones Carson and Aiyana had used earlier.

“I’m sorry, I only have
one oxygen supply, but you can monitor my activity from here.”

He picked up the academic
case and disappeared inside the improvised clean room. A display flickered into
life showing Kalidas taking out the cassettes.

“My God, it really is
them.”

He examined both before
selecting one.

“This is the first one
Teng recorded” he said.

They watched as he picked
up a small instrument and crouched over the workbench. After several minutes of
gasps and tiny grunts he finally lifted the top off the cassette.

“The tape appears to be
in good condition.”

He placed the opened unit
into the cylindrical device.

“Teng’s recorder pulled
the tape out of the cassette in order to read it. However, the media has
undoubtedly become very fragile over the centuries and I have no intention of
trying to physically unspool it.”

Kalidas indicated the
squat cylinder.

“This machine is a diagnostic
tool generally used to examine complex systems.”

He placed his hand on the
console.

“It is capable of
creating a precise three-dimensional map of every iron particle in the spooled
tape. After that it will be a simple exercise to extract the encoded audio
signals. The full analysis will take several hours but I first want to find out
if there really is anything there.”

The display darkened and
Kalidas rejoined Carson and Aiyana in the main room.

“I can operate the
machine from here” he said pulling off the breathing mask.

“I’ve instructed it to
examine the first few layers of tape.”

“Ready, Professor” the
machine announced.

“Play”

“Not that – Artificial
intelligence is difficult to define and we must be careful how we classify its
limits.”

All three of them let out
a cry of relief. The recording sounded exactly the same as the one found in a
million libraries throughout the galaxy – the tape was still decipherable.

“Is there a second layer
of recording?”

“There is, Professor”

“Not that this was the
first design that we examined…”
began a male voice.

“Yes!” was all Kalidas
shouted.

Carson was actually happy
for him – he had experienced the same joy when he realized the true provenance
of the small toy he had found on Delta Pavonis.

“Congratulations Kalidas”
he said with unforced sincerity “you have made an extraordinary discovery.”

“Thank you, thank you. I
must proceed immediately with the full analysis. Then of course there is the
second cassette.”

“We’ll leave you to it. I’ll
call you in the morning to see how it’s going.”

But it wasn’t the next
day, it was in the middle of the night when he next heard from the renegade
academic.

Carson was in the depths
of sleep as the call came through.

“What the –”

He glanced at the dim
outline of Aiyana’s sleeping body and shuffled into the kitchen.

“Carson, Carson, it’s
better than I dared dream! The last three hours on the tape are a conversation
with one of the principal engineers, a man named Koju Sakyamuni. He actually
talks about the building of the Yongding – this is sensational!”

“That’s terrific” Carson said kindly, though as far as he was concerned it would still be terrific in the
morning.

“But that’s not why I’m
calling. Listen to this…”

Another voice came on,
speaking Ancient English in a lilting accent.

“Of course, New Earth
wasn’t the first world we visited, there were the others…”

As soon as he opened the door Kalidas spun round
and disappeared inside. Carson sighed and followed him through the sleeping
house. By the time he entered the apartment the historian was crouched over his
console.

Thirty minutes had passed
since the frantic call had come through. There was no question of returning to
bed. Carson had dressed as quietly as he could, left a message for Aiyana, and
summoned a taxi.

“During the initial
planning stages we were still in a – how would you say it? – an obsolescent
mindset; we envisaged building a small prototype craft before attempting
anything on a large scale. That is a fine idea for designing an interplanetary
craft, but in many ways the Yongding is not a spaceship at all – it is a machine for distorting space-time. You might as well make it as large as you can.”

Hypnotized, Carson sat down beside Kalidas and listened to the eight thousand year-old voice.

“Guidance was without
doubt our greatest challenge. Also, we had no idea how fast the ship would go! The only way to solve these questions was to activate the Alcubierre Drive and
go somewhere. It was months before we really got the hang of navigation.”

Kalidas paused the audio
and turned to Carson. By now he was effervescing.

“This is beyond anything!
Do you know – of course you do – that scholars have made careers out of
reinterpreting just a few hours of the Teng recordings, and here we have two
hundred hours of extraordinary new material!”

He was right: publication
was guaranteed to cause a sensation.

“You said this was at the
end of the tape – how did you find it so quickly?”

“As soon as I had
extracted the whole recording I created a summary using a semantic analyzer. Not
the most precise tool but it served its purpose.”

Carson shook his head,
there were so many questions.

“The section you played
to me when you called – Sakyamuni was talking about visiting other systems. Has
he said which ones?”

“Not yet. Eridani b – that
is what they called New Earth – was always the primary target but it seems that
they traveled to other planets to hone their navigation skills and possibly to find
alternative settlement sites. From their perspective before the Melt they had
all the time in the world. I’m sure the Yongding was originally envisaged as a
vessel for exploration as well as colonization.”

Kalidas turned to another
display and summoned the one surviving picture of the Yongding. It was floating
against a starry background while in one corner the glowing curve of a
planetary surface could be seen, presumably Old Earth. Despite being one of the
most famous images in the galaxy it yielded frustrating little information. With
no frame of reference even the size the ancient starship was in doubt.

Carson still did not get
it.

“How could all record of
these trips possibly have been lost?”

“Sakyamuni was a Tech, he
disappeared with the rest.”

“True, and Teng only made
a handful of recordings using the tape device. He used it as a desperate last
measure when he ran out of any other kind of storage and eventually they were
all overwritten. I doubt he had much say in their use – he was dying from some forgotten
disease. Even so…”

“You think this knowledge
was deliberately suppressed, don’t you Carson?”

“Yeah, it’s the simplest
explanation. But it must have been on Cissokho’s orders – there’s no other way everything
could have been wiped out so thoroughly.”

“In fact, it may not have
been the work of human beings at all.”

Oh God, here we go.

“You seem doubtful, but
suppose the early voyages stumbled upon signs of an alien civilization. The
galaxy is littered with clues of other intelligences. Do you know of M6090, the
globular star cluster in the Crux Arm? It is a gigantic assembly of more than
one million suns, all improbably similar in size but with an extraordinary
variety of color. I believe M6090 was created four billion years ago as a work
of art.”

Carson needed to change
the subject fast.

“Well, whatever the
explanation we have the recordings now. Have you checked the second cassette
yet?”

Mercifully, Kalidas took
the bait.

“No, you are right – we
must access that material. In the final section of the first tape Sakyamuni
segues into a long description of navigation technology, however I am confident
he will return to the subject of the Yongding’s voyages.”

Kalidas donned his
breathing apparatus and disappeared into his improvised clean room; Carson watched on the display as the gaunt man crouched over the second cassette. Following
the same procedure as the first cassette, his initial task was to open the
casing to allow the diagnostic tool to do its analysis.

“This one appears to be
less securely fastened.”

Kalidas let out an animal
scream.
What the hell?

“Oh God, no, no, no…”

“What is it?” Carson shouted.

In answer, Kalidas
snatched up the recorder that was transmitting to Carson in the next room and
held the lens directly over the open cassette. There was no tape; eight
thousand years had reduced the contents to a pile of rotted fragments.

Oh God, he’s going to
panic.

“Listen to me” Carson said in as commanding a voice as he could manage “we still have a chance. Refasten
the top of the cassette very carefully. Then let’s talk.”

Still cursing, Kalidas
did as he was told, then staggered out of the clean room. When he pulled off
the breathing mask tears were flowing from the hideous eyes.

“I was so close…” he
wept.

Overcoming his revulsion,
Carson gripped him by the shoulders.

“Kalidas, it may be
possible to restore the tape – part of it at least. Each magnetic signal may be
spread over several pieces – if so they could be matched. It may even be
possible to reassemble it like a giant shape puzzle.”

“But there are thousands
fragments, how could anyone…”

“I know someone who might
just be able to do it. I need all your technical specifications on the
structure of the tape and the recording formats. And I need the tape.”

Grey morning light was
already seeping over the old street when Carson finally left the house. He was
carrying a small hermetically sealed case, inside was the second cassette. Kalidas
had copied all the technical data to a personal recorder and, with reluctance,
had added a copy of the complete audio from the first cassette.

“How do I know you will
not publish yourself?”

“For God’s sake – I
committed a major crime to get all this and you still don’t trust me?”

Kalidas had finally
agreed when Carson made the case that they needed to listen to all one hundred
hours of the recording themselves. It was possible that the semantic analyzer
had missed something vital.

“I will have to travel
some distance so I’ll be gone all day. I’ll contact you as soon as I have word
on whether the tape can be recovered.”

Aiyana was yawning over
breakfast when he got to their apartment.

“I got your message – so
what was all the excitement?”

She woke up fast as Carson retold the story.

Oh my God! The Yongding
visited other systems? How could we not know?”

“Exactly what I asked. According
to Kalidas the information was suppressed by aliens. Well, that would certainly
make the news.”

Aiyana laughed, but
embarrassed as she was she had to ask

“Carson… there’s no
chance he’s right, is there?”

“Oh please – no, it was Cissokho,
but God knows why. The standard story is that the only other voyages were a few
shakedown cruises in the vicinity of Sol. Now it seems they got to God knows
where.”

“You’ve been up all night
poor baby – are you coming to bed?”

“I wish, but there’s no
time. As soon as I’ve grabbed breakfast and a shower I’m heading south to an
island called Mutapa.”

“Oh that sounds fun, mind
if I come?”

“I’d love to have some
company; I’m off to meet my friend Tallis. Remember me telling you about her? She’s
the one who made the mechanical butterflies in the conservatory. If anyone can
restore the tape it’ll be her.”

But Carson had another
reason for encouraging Aiyana to accompany him – this was no time to leave her
by herself. Shin could be arriving as soon as today, assuming he had guessed
that they would head directly to New Earth. Clan Aniko had tried to kill Aiyana
once, and although he doubted they would try anything that drastic again, once
was enough.

Carson desperately wanted
to listen to the recordings recovered from the first cassette but he was asleep
within five minutes of climbing into their rented car, leaving Aiyana glued to
the window listening to the vehicle’s travelogue. She woke him an hour later as
their destination appeared over the curve of the horizon.

Mutapa was a long
straggling tropical island just south of the equator. From their altitude of
one hundred kilometers they could see the wide ridge of densely forested
mountains that formed the island’s backbone. Wild rivers coursed through the
highlands to feed the emerald jungles of the surrounding plains. Beyond the
white beaches a necklace of coral reefs glinted in the azure water.

The landscape was
virtually unchanged from the time the Yongding materialized in the skies of New
Earth eight thousand years ago. The early colonists, mindful of the ecological
devastation of their old home, had chosen to leave at least this one island to
the local fauna. Everywhere else native vegetation grew next to plants
transported in the pioneers’ huge genome database, but Mutapa was a living time
capsule of the planet’s pre-human ecology. They were headed to the island’s one
human outpost.

Viewed from above, the
settlement was a target of three concentric circles set into endless vegetation.
The outer ring appeared to be a buffer zone of cleared ground. Inside that was
a ring of densely packed buildings, and in the center was a checkerboard circle
about a kilometer in diameter. The car landed itself in the built-up section.

“You’re going to love
this place” Carson said “it’ll feel just like home.”

The moment the door
peeled open Aiyana realized how right he was. They were met with a wall of moisture
and heat.

“Oh this is wonderful! Can
I take my clothes off now?”

“Later my darling, later”

From afar they could hear
the din of the rain forest. The birds were not quite birds and the monkeys not
quite monkeys, but the cacophony they created was unmistakable. Carson and
Aiyana hurried through the blinding sunlight to a low building crowned with a
holosign announcing Formicidae Systems.

The interior could have
been an art gallery. The walls displayed a procession of images of exquisitely
made artifacts including the robotic insects in the ship’s conservatory, although Aiyana could not fathom why they were intercut with some sort of natural
history program.

“Carson!” said the
counter as he slapped down his hand “welcome to Vegrandis.”

“Thanks – I have
transport reserved but I have an additional request.”

At this point the human
supervisor was summoned. Carson opened his shoulder bag and pulled out the
hermetically sealed container holding the second cassette.

“I need to take this as
well. I realize it’s rather large but I’m hoping you can accommodate me.”

“Hmm… yes it is, but I
think we can manage – there will be an additional charge of course.”

Rather large? Aiyana wanted
to laugh but they both appeared to be completely serious. Moments later the
smallest self-propelled cart she had ever seen materialized at their feet. The
supervisor knelt down and carefully positioned the container. Carson produced a
smaller package that was also added to the load. The miniscule vehicle and its cargo
disappeared through a hatch.

“You are familiar with
our operation and protocols? Excellent, there is no need for further delay. Hanger
B, you are booked for three hours, honored customer”

Aiyana followed Carson down an anonymous corridor to a door that announced itself as Hanger B. They entered
a spacious room at the center of which were two white ovoid pods. At his
command the pods split open along their central seams to reveal large couches
surrounded by equipment, much like the interior of the ship’s buggy.

“Okay, now you can take
your clothes off” he said as he started to undress. Aiyana followed his
example. By now she understood Carson well enough to know that he had a
surprise in store. His glee was so endearing she did not have the heart to
spoil it by demanding to be told what the hell was going on.

As soon as they were both
naked Carson encircled Aiyana in his arms and hugged her.