Fleet of Worlds Read online

  The thought terrified him.

  Eric found the display control that turned a wall transparent, revealing the vast enclosed central volume of the factory. Nessus saw six hulls in progress. Surely, this artificial world looked wondrous to them. Like the scenic flight plan he had chosen, this stopover was meant to instill awe. He needed their dutiful diligence when—soon—he could no longer accompany them.

  The nearest construct was a #4 hull, what Colonists knew as a grain ship. Its position near the view port was no coincidence. That placement hid a production space that was almost empty. Nessus had seen the same volume almost filled with ships. The export market no longer existed, of course: The Fleet would soon leave behind the many races too foolish to immediately flee the explosion at the galactic core.

  “Can we get a tour?” Eric asked. His eyes never left the factory region.

  “Of course,” Nessus promised. On cue, a General Products executive appeared. He wore his mane in tight, closely packed braids, the hair a striking yellow-brown that approached a Colonist’s ash blond. His utility belt and few ornaments disclosed affiliation only to the company. “Here is your guide.”

  Nessus exchanged introductions and greetings with the newcomer, who did not speak English. “I brought a translator. I’ll activate it now.”

  “Hello,” the executive said. “My name is . . . and I will be showing you around the facility.”

  Citizen names seldom translated. How should the Colonists refer to their guide? A label popped into Nessus’ mind, unsurprising given his recent re-immersion in wild-human cultures. The word amused him, and with so much at stake he needed amusement. “For today, we’ll call you Baedeker.”

  “I shall be Baedeker then. I’ll start with an overview of our operation. We’re looking into the main production volume of . . .”

  KIRSTEN GAZED INTO the enclosure that Nessus had so casually called a factory and she had mistaken for a small moon. Omar was subdued; she guessed he was as awed as she. Eric, though, seemed ready to burst with questions. Unless he overcame the habits of a lifetime and interrupted a Citizen, those questions would go unasked. One-headed speech evidently sufficed for the translator, and Baedeker never paused for a breath.

  “. . . Familiar with the Number 2 model, of course. We built your ship around such a hull. Explorer is unusual, though, in that it has a fusion drive. As part of this refit we’ll replace the fusion drive with more and larger thrusters.”

  “Thrusters are more compact,” Nessus said.

  Why had Nessus made that comment? They knew all about thrusters. Only thrusters made sense near populated worlds, which was why Explorer already had some thrusters.

  He clearly knew about this refitting. Why hadn’t he mentioned that? Swap-out of the ship’s main normal-space drive struck Kirsten as a major change. Eric’s furrowed brow showed he was equally surprised.

  “Our most popular model is the Number 1 hull.” Baedeker held his heads about a foot apart. “They’re excellent for free-flying sensors, small satellites, and such.”

  The air was redolent with a spicy chemical smell, reminiscent of the pheromones with which Nessus flooded Explorer but somehow different. These scents were more varied, Kirsten decided, more like the forest smells she had encountered on Elysium. Perhaps this factory/moon recycled its atmosphere biologically. Certainly it was large enough.

  “We have prototyped several of the changes you Colonists suggested.” Baedeker suddenly vanished. He had not moved from the room’s stepping disc since his first appearance, a position he had maintained despite the microgravity conditions by hooking hoof claws through some of the fabric loops that surrounded the disc. Doubtless he was prepared to flee the Colonists. Perhaps the three of them were Baedeker’s first.

  A nudge against the wall sent Kirsten floating over the disc. It remained active; she found herself drifting in a chamber twice as large as the room she had left. This space was crowded, mostly with new computer cabinets. She was happiest to see keyboards whose layouts looked better-suited to fingers than to lip nodes and tongues.

  Omar appeared before she could identify the other equipment, and then Eric. Nessus arrived last.

  “Also, notice the modified crash couch we have designed for the bridge,” Baedeker said. His second head adjusted the seat as he spoke. “I understand that for your next mission you will all be flight-trained. This reconfigurable couch accommodates whoever is piloting.” He circled around his visitors to occupy a place above the room’s stepping disc. “Someone try it.”

  “I will.” On his first try Omar bounced from the chair. “This would be much easier with gravity. Can we get some in this room?”

  “No,” Baedeker said. “Is that comfortable?”

  “Why not,” Eric burst out. He seemed surprised at his own interruption.

  Baedeker looked unhappily at Nessus. “Our manufacturing processes are quite sensitive to gravity. How is the couch?”

  “It’s a good fit for me.” A nudge against an arm rest sent Omar floating free. “Someone else try it. Eric?”

  “I’m an engineer,” Eric said. Kirsten understood that to mean it took more than an adjustable seat to impress him. “Room-scaled artificial gravity produces minimal fringing fields. Pardon my curiosity, Baedeker. What is so sensitive?”

  Shut up, Eric! This trip might be their only chance to uncover their long-hidden history. Excessive curiosity now could lose them that opportunity. Kirsten had to change the subject. Using a bolted-down table for leverage, she pulled herself to the prototype couch. “My turn.”

  Eric frowned, but he took her hint. He managed to keep quiet through a presentation about new sensors. Then he asked, “When will we see hulls being made?”

  “You have seen that,” Nessus said.

  “I mean in person, Nessus. Up close.”

  “It is not allowed.” Baedeker answered. “That region is a controlled vacuum.”

  “I’ll wear my pressure suit. It’s aboard . . .”

  Baedeker’s heads wobbled from side to side on the hinges of their necks. Kirsten had seldom seen the gesture, but knew it denoted strong disagreement. Eric needed to drop this! “It is not allowed,” Baedeker insisted. “The traces of gas and dust that cling to the outside of your suit would contaminate the process.”

  “I don’t understand,” Omar said. “Nessus, you told us only large quantities of antimatter could harm Explorer’s hull. How can a bit of dust harm anything?”

  “What I told you is correct,” Nessus said. “I was speaking of completed hulls. During construction, hulls are fragile.”

  Eric would not let it go. “Extreme sensitivity to gravitational variations. Extreme sensitivity to trace contaminants. It sounds like a very-large-scale nanotech process.”

  Baedeker made a noise like a slow-motion boiler explosion. His howl did not translate. Nessus responded in kind, but louder and longer, until Baedeker lowered his heads submissively.

  “General Products Corporation does not often disclose this information,” Nessus said. “Given what you now know, it is best that you hear the rest. It would be unfortunate if you lost trust in your ship.

  “Explorer’s hull is impervious to damage. If not, would I have ventured out in it? Still, there is a fact I had not shared. The hull takes its strength from its unique form: It is a single supermolecule grown atom by atom by nanotechnology. During construction, the incomplete hull is unstable. The slightest chemical contamination or unbalanced force can tear it to pieces. That’s why there is no artificial gravity here, and why communication here uses optical fibers.”

  Kirsten gulped. As dependable as the rising of the suns, hundreds of grain ships visited NP4 daily. Each was like a soap bubble a thousand feet in diameter, grown atom by atom. How could such a thing be done? “Baedeker, are there only the four hull styles, each always the same size, because those are the superstrong molecular configurations?” In the back of her mind was the geometric oddity that there could be only five regular po
lyhedrons.

  Eric disregarded both pairs of vigorously bobbing heads. “I don’t think so, Kirsten. Hull shapes are standardized, but the details differ. Think about the number and placement of airlocks, the number and placement of openings for cable bundles, that sort of thing. And when I requested additional external hull sensors for Explorer, there were no restrictions on where to attach them or to route through the cable bundles. Since hull penetrations are that unconstrained, I can’t imagine how the molecular strength could stem from specific sizes or shapes.”

  Baedeker screamed again, louder and more discordantly than before. It only ended when he activated the stepping disc and vanished. Maybe he fled, Kirsten thought. Or maybe he was seeking higher authority.

  “Too much logic?” Eric asked. The hurt look on his face added, “From a Colonist?”

  “As I stated, this construction process is not widely shared,” Nessus said. “You lack only one final detail. The supermolecule’s imperviousness derives from interatomic bonds artificially strengthened using an embedded power plant. The stiffened bonds can absorb virtually any impact, and temperatures up to hundreds of thousands of degrees.

  “Reinforcement of the bonds only becomes possible once the hull is effectively full-grown. Until then, as Baedeker explained, the construct is extremely fragile.

  “Are you satisfied?”

  Eric averted his eyes. Perhaps he had finally realized the extent of his assertiveness. “Yes, Nessus. I hope you will apologize for me to Baedeker. My professional interest does not excuse poor manners.”

  “Good,” Nessus said. “Overhaul of Explorer will continue, but we have likely rendered ourselves unwelcome as guests. We will take the next available shuttle.”

  It wasn’t until the shuttle was halfway to the surface, hull vibrating from the forces of reentry, that Kirsten took notice of a critical detail. Nessus and Baedeker alike had nodded at her analogy, moments later proven untenable, of four stable hull types. Up/down; down/up; up/down; down/up . . . like a Colonist’s vigorous head nodding, it denoted firm agreement. Yet Nessus knew reinforced chemical bonds actually explained GP hull strength.

  Nessus lied to us, Kirsten thought. What else has he lied to us about?

  14

  Explorer’s crew exited the shuttle onto a vast expanse of concrete. Intellectually, Kirsten had known what to expect. Arcadia spaceport was merely one of several spaceports on one of five farm worlds. This was the main spaceport of Hearth itself.

  Viscerally, she could not have been less prepared.

  The unimaginable scale froze her in place. They had disembarked deep within an array of grain ships that extended in all directions. Cargo carriers, thousands of them, teemed everywhere. Strips of white lights embedded in the pavement provided ground-level illumination, while the clouds throbbed with the reflected blue running lights of arriving and departing vessels. In the distance, speckled blocks, prisms, and cylinders rose above the ships. To tower over the grain ships like that . . . those were towers. The smallest building must stand at least a mile tall. The tiny speckles were windows.

  “I don’t believe it,” Omar said wonderingly. “I see it. I’ve read and been told about it. I still can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it.” Eric turned slowly, savoring every detail. “A trillion Citizens. One planet. Do the math.”

  Nessus watched them taking it all in. “Are you ready to proceed?”

  They had exited the shuttle by stepping disc. They could have gone directly to wherever Nessus wanted them. Was his purpose a tourist excursion or understated intimidation? “Where to, Nessus?” she asked.

  He pointed, neck and tongue extended, at the tallest tower in sight. “Soon enough, there. I arranged a meeting with a Concordance official to discuss scouting missions. Although almost anyplace is convenient to the spaceport by stepping disc, the deputy minister chose to place his department in sight of the spaceport.”

  “How long until then?” How long did she have to somehow gain access to Herd Net?

  “I intended you to have an NP4 day here for sightseeing.” Nessus picked at his mane. “That has changed. There were complaints about our visit to the General Products orbital facility. The deputy minister is rearranging his schedule to see us earlier. We have until we’re summoned, no longer.”

  Was there an undercurrent to Nessus’ reference to the deputy minister? A slight pause before the title? An especially careful pronunciation? Were Nessus a man, Kirsten would have had no doubt.

  A nearby grain ship lifted off. Eric craned his head to watch it recede, running lights pulsing, into the perpetual night of Hearth’s sky.

  “Come.” Nessus vanished.

  Swallowing hard, Kirsten stepped onto the disc he had just vacated—and into complete sensory overload.

  Unimaginably large buildings loomed over her, their tops hidden in low cloud. She stood in a plaza, amid tens of thousands of Citizens jostling together like . . . what? They clumped like sheep, flank by flank without visible space, but entering and exiting the flock, veering and converging, with intent purpose. Herd pheromones saturated the air, so pungent that her eyes watered. And the din! It sounded like a thousand orchestras tuning up at once, while tens of thousands of hooves beat a counterpoint on the pavement.

  Blunt teeth grasped Kirsten’s arm and tugged. “You must vacate the disc.” Nessus spoke from one mouth, for his other one still grasped her elbow. She stepped back and Eric appeared. His jaw dropped; she felt better seeing his reaction.

  By the time Nessus jostled Eric aside and Omar appeared, another impression struck her. “Nessus, everyone is staring at us.”

  “Colonists on Hearth remain a rarity.” Nessus began walking across the plaza. “Stay with me. You will not be bothered.”

  “We’re in your mouths,” Omar said shakily. “What can we see?”

  The clear area around them moved with them, a bubble adrift in the sea of Citizens. Rare meant unknown meant, to Citizens, prospectively dangerous. What threat might the three of them possibly pose, she wondered.

  “We are in a communal courtyard,” Nessus answered Omar. “It is typical, although smaller than average. I did not want to overwhelm you.”

  “What are the surrounding buildings?” Eric asked.

  “Three edges of the square are arcologies, modest by Hearth standards but you would consider each a large city.” Nessus pointed at the fourth and nearest side, toward which they continued to walk. “This is a local entertainment and shopping complex.”

  Kirsten was about to ask a question when a distinctive warble intruded. “Excuse me,” Nessus said. His head poked into a pocket of his utility belt. There were muffled orchestral sounds, and then his head reappeared. “That was the deputy minister’s office. He will see us in a little less than an hour.”

  Kirsten’s mind raced. A trip to Hearth had seemed their best hope to ferret out the facts about the Colonists’ past. Among so many Citizens, with so little time, what chance was there to gain access to Herd Net? Would they have a moment without Nessus’ supervision? It had to be now. After a high official had rearranged his schedule to get the three of them off-world sooner, she could not count on a repeat visit.

  “Many artists exhibit in the main promenade.” Nessus continued his recitation. “Classical holostatues remain the most common, but dynamic holoforms are increasingly popular. My favorite is—” He trilled something in both throats. “Sorry, his name has no meaningful translation.”

  He’s manic again, Kirsten realized. The meeting is almost upon us, and Nessus is working himself up.

  “. . . A secondary entrance. The interior lobby has stepping discs, of course, for access to the stores and artistic venues. We can spare the time for a quick look.”

  As they reached an overhang, Kirsten encountered a slight pressure. A weak force field to keep out weather, she decided, pressing through into the lobby. Translucent holograms floated overhead, both abstract art and scrolling directories. Stylized fonts, rapi
d scrolling, and unfamiliar vocabulary rendered most labels unrecognizable. A few made sense: hair salons; stores selling jewelry, belts, music, and books; art galleries; concert stadiums. Aha! “Nessus.”

  He stopped. “What, Kirsten?”

  “I’d like to get some souvenirs.” She ignored Omar’s baffled expression. “Maybe some picture books.”

  Nessus swiveled a head to scan the nearest directory. “Follow me.” He vanished. This time Omar and Eric beat her to the disc Nessus had activated.

  She emerged into a small, congested shop. Media players lined several shelves at the front of the store. Captions and illustrations floated over bins brimming with packaged media.

  “Omar, would you mind picking out a reader for me?” She squeezed through the narrow aisles, Citizen customers staring at her, until she found a range of bins labeled “History.” She plucked up a handful of coin-sized data disks under an assortment of titles. Most dealt with Hearth, but she included several about the NP worlds and Colonists. She added geography and art books from other racks.

  Nessus was deep in conversation with another Citizen, a cascade of wild music, when Kirsten returned to the front of the store. She set her selections on the counter beside the media reader Omar had picked. As the clerk waved a scanner over everything, it occurred to her to wonder how to complete the purchase. Did stores on Hearth accept Colonist credits? “Nessus, may I pay you back?”

  “Of course.” He completed the transaction with a tongueprint on the scanner. “We must be going.”

  NIKE’S CAPACIOUS OFFICE had acquired a human-compatible sofa since Nessus’ last visit. Tuxedo-style, Nessus thought. Its purpose might be simple hospitality. More likely, Nike hoped to render the Colonist visitors careless with a gesture.