Fleet of Worlds Page 3

  The room must have looked safe enough. Nessus entered and straddled his thickly padded bench, arching one neck forward to more closely examine the mass pointer. “We will arrive soon,” he said. The simple statement ended with a hint of rising inflection that was surely no accident.

  He had run the experimental training program for Colonist scouts. Surely questioning his protégés was by now second nature to him. But what was the question? Whether preparations had been completed while he hid in his room? No, that topic would be reserved for the captain.

  Twenty of the best and brightest had been winnowed from the Colonists’ millions. Whatever their avocations or interests, until this time of crisis every Colonist contributed directly or indirectly to food production. The trillion Citizens on Hearth consumed vast amounts of food, and left scant open space on which to raise it. How she, Omar, and Eric performed on this mission would be taken as proof whether any child of farmers and conservationists could rise to the occasion.

  Before departing the Fleet, the biggest risk the three of them had imagined was a lack of challenge. The unsuspecting aliens whose faint radio emissions had drawn Hearth’s attention might prove too primitive. They might offer the crew no opportunity to show their talents.

  How naïve those fears now seemed!

  Risks motivated Citizens, risks and finding ways to avoid them. If Nessus were questioning her, most likely the unstated subject was risk. He wanted to know: Did she understand the dangers?

  The only tasks in hyperspace were routine maintenance and monitoring the mass pointer. The one was tedious, and the other nerve-racking. In such a small crew, everyone took turns. They were about to emerge from hyperspace, though, and this time not only for a reassuring peek. When they did, the star that had been their target would instantly become the brightest object in their sky. In that instant, the crew’s roles would cease to be interchangeable.

  She would be a navigator once more, once more with stars to steer by.

  “We’ll assume orbit well outside the singularity,” she answered, guessing at his implied question. “I can’t imagine how they could detect, let alone waylay us—but if they do, we’ll reengage hyperdrive and be gone.”

  Two bobbing heads, alternating high and low, left Kirsten convinced she had guessed correctly. She smiled too, in her own Colonist way.

  EXPLORER BURST FROM hyperspace at furious speed.

  The courage that enabled Nessus to be here meant that he was, by definition, insane. Kirsten had never met a sane Citizen, because they never left Hearth. Her hands never left the flight controls, but her eyes kept darting involuntarily to the right where Nessus rested upon his crash couch. He could take control of the ship from her at any time. The knowledge was simultaneously reassuring and demeaning.

  The Fleet’s velocity at Explorer’s departure was “only” 0.017 light speed. Setting out, that initial impetus had seemed a meaningless crawl in the context of the light-years they were about to cross. That same intrinsic velocity as they reentered normal space was an altogether different matter.

  Under Nessus’ watchful eyes, Kirsten shed excess speed using the ship’s gravity drag. Three times she micro-jumped them back to hyperspace, looping them around their target for another braking pass. Explorer’s fusion drive would have accomplished the task much faster—but a miles-long column of fusing hydrogen, hotter than the surfaces of stars, would have shouted the news of their arrival to anyone watching.

  “Well done,” Nessus finally said.

  “Thanks.” Her mentor’s words seemed both sincere and tentative. As Kirsten steered Explorer into orbit around the distant spark named G567-X2, she initiated a deep-radar scan. It was both doctrine and enigma. Neutrinos passed right through normal matter, so what were they looking for? “It is good practice,” was the only explanation their trainer had offered. “Nessus will know what to do if there is a return signal.”

  As busy as she was, Kirsten could not help wondering what the aliens called this sun. Nessus would not care. Citizens exhibited curiosity only when their safety might be imperiled. At other times, they considered inquisitiveness to be at best a distraction.

  Perhaps their curiosity made Colonists better explorers, and that was why they were here. Or perhaps Colonists were only expendable. Her parents and brothers thought the latter. And if no one were willing to scout ahead of the Fleet? Her family had no answer to that.

  With a sigh of relief, Kirsten raised her hands from the controls. “We’re in orbit,” she announced over the ship’s intercom. To Nessus, she added, “We’re safely outside the singularity, as promised.”

  With one head high and the other low, he studied her. “Good. Our work here begins.”

  2

  Of the solar system they had come so far to survey, only the star that they distantly circled was visible to the naked eye. Their instruments reported one gas giant and three rocky worlds, plus an unexceptional assortment of asteroids and remote snowballs.

  Radio signals had brought Explorer here; radio signals emanated now from only one spot in the solar system: the third moon of the gas giant. On close examination—close denoting high magnification, not proximity—that moon was tidally locked to its primary, airless, and sheathed in ice. Great cracks crisscrossed the icy surface. Nessus remembered seeing another world quite like it once, a long time ago. It was called Europa.

  “There is probably a world-spanning water ocean under the ice,” Omar said. He was pacing the narrow aisle of the relax room, which, after the machinery-packed engine room, was the largest chamber aboard the ship. Eric and Kirsten were tucked into small spaces on either side of the treadmill.

  Nessus watched from the doorway as Omar led a review of their early findings. Most of what they discussed was confirmation rather than discovery. The Fleet’s instruments were very sensitive. The crew’s findings would be matched to what the Fleet already knew. Nessus hoped the three of them had not figured that out.

  “. . . So by process of elimination, whoever is generating the radio signals is beneath the ice,” Omar concluded. He glanced from time to time at Nessus for approval.

  Captain Omar Tanaka-Singh was tall, wiry, and slope-shouldered. An unruly mop of brown hair—Nessus had wondered: Was that a conscious imitation of my mane?—emphasized the pinched features of his face. Omar organized and administered shipboard activities; he did not define them. Nessus, in role if not in title, was the mission’s Hindmost: he who leads from behind. The captain coordinated such tasks as Nessus delegated.

  Before his selection for training as a scout, Omar had been an agricultural logistician. In that role he balanced projected demand with long-term weather forecasts with transportation availability with plant-pest mutation probabilities with, doubtless, many more fuzzily defined factors. The work demanded multidisciplinary analytical skills and a broad tolerance for ambiguity. And yet—while deciding what to plant and when to harvest it were important, things agricultural changed slowly. How would thought processes attuned to the growing season adjust to scouting of the unknown?

  Some things were unknowable from a distance. Were that not the case, Nessus mused, there would be no need for scouts. “Omar, how do underwater beings make radio waves?”

  “Eric, why don’t you handle that?” Omar responded.

  Eric Huang-Mbeke was their engineer. He was stocky and short, with ocher skin, thick lips, small teeth, and dark and intense eyes. His naturally black hair was dyed in long, colorful strands elaborately braided in imitation of Citizen style.

  Explorer’s ability to sense through the ice was limited, but that constraint wasn’t the chief difficulty. Why would the aliens deploy radios at all? Sound was a more suitable mechanism for underwater communication. Radio waves attenuated quickly even in pure water. Explorer had observed enough water bursting through fresh surface cracks to measure the covered ocean’s salinity, and it was high. Radio could not be a useful medium under the ice.

  And even more puzzling: How could pa
rts for a radio or its antenna be fabricated under water? While Eric hypothesized about forays above the ice, unknowingly echoing speculations of the experts on Hearth, Nessus found his attention wandering.

  Did any Colonist truly understand how coiffures encoded social status among Citizens? Nessus doubted it. His mane was unadorned because he considered the custom an affectation.

  Nessus could have worn an elaborate style if he so chose. Powers high in the Concordance government, within two levels of the Hindmost himself, had authorized this mission. Those who had appointed Nessus to lead it mostly disdained him for the very traits that made him qualified. Nessus returned their not-quite-hidden sneers by wearing his mane not only plain, but occasionally disheveled. His parents were Conservatives; he had ample experience coping with disapproval.

  He hoped his conduct toward the Colonists was less judgmental than what he had so often received. Eric in particular deserved better: His devotion to the Concordance was beyond question. With each new generation, more Colonists took their comfortable existence for granted. Eric would never be one of them.

  The irony was not lost on Nessus. For all that he questioned authority, instinctive loyalty to the current, utterly conservative, political order was a primary selection criterion for this crew. He would have it no other way. His safety might someday depend on their reflexive deference.

  “Nessus?” Eric prompted respectfully.

  Nessus quickly ran through his mind the highlights of Eric’s briefing and Kirsten’s occasional insightful interjection. On the one head, they had raised no points new to the Fleet’s analysts. On the other head, despite being pioneers on their first separation from their own kind, their findings so far seemed sound. He could not reasonably have expected anything more.

  “You’ve made some interesting observations. How would you propose we proceed?”

  “I would like to get closer,” Eric said. “Perhaps we can locate their above-the-ocean bases.”

  “Absolutely not,” Omar glanced at Nessus for support. “That’s why we carry unmanned probes.”

  Explorer’s distant orbit around G567-X2 was not, as Nessus was happy for his crew to believe, a precaution taken against the still-unseen aliens. Out here where hyperdrive could be used, the hyperwave radio hidden in his cabin could also be used.

  If Explorer headed sunward, they would leave behind a hyperwave radio buoy, with which the ship could then link by conventional radio. The light-speed crawl to the relay, however, was the problem. It would delay his access to Hearth’s experts. The illusion of infallibility would be lost without fast access to a world of experts.

  As Omar turned anxiously to Nessus for support, Nessus wondered whether his staffing decisions might already have proven him fallible. Perhaps the captain was too much like a Citizen. In a crisis, would Omar become hysterical or withdraw? Of course, Omar’s wariness was another tool Nessus could use to mold and guide the crew. Problem or not, Nessus took satisfaction from having had the insight. He was getting to truly understand them all: cautious Omar, loyal Eric, and quiet but clever Kirsten.

  This must be what it’s like to raise children. The comparison seemed appropriate: If Nessus expected ever to have his own children, he must demonstrate success with these Colonists. He had once overheard his parents discussing the need for extreme caution in having progeny: “The disadvantage of advanced medical technology—we have to live with our child for a long time.” It did not matter that Nessus was eager to take that chance, for there was no prospective mate in his life.

  Success could change that.

  Flight from danger was instinctive for Citizens. He certainly had the same reflex; no doubt there would be times he would regret the decision he was about to announce. Fortunately for the trillion on Hearth, he, and a precious few like him, could overcome the impulse.

  Perhaps it was the prospect of a mate when they succeeded. Whatever the cause, a manic mood seized him. It was familiar from his other travels and at the same time wondrously strange. They were inside a General Products hull, made from the most impenetrable material known to his or any other species. Without a black hole or large amounts of antimatter, there was nothing the ice-moon aliens could possibly do to harm them. He felt liberated, even giddy.

  Nessus fixed Omar with a hard, two-headed stare. “Actually, Omar, I think the level of hazard is acceptable. Everything we have discussed here suggests the aliens use only quite primitive technology. I believe we’ll be quite safe.

  “Let’s go get a closer look.”

  ERIC WAS LEAVING the tiny galley as Kirsten arrived. He loitered while she got a glass of juice from the synthesizer.

  He had been wearing the bold colors of a man seeking a wife and children, ready to settle down. Fair enough. But aboard this ship were only Omar, who was already mated and had two daughters, and Eric, and Kirsten herself.

  She had worn only gray—and a pale gray, at that, for added emphasis—to make plain that she was not presently open to any relationship. She had done so since the final crew selection, before Explorer ever departed their world of NP4. If asked, she would have told a partial truth: that her sole focus was on the success of the mission.

  Eric’s colors were bolder today than ever, his jumpsuit an eye-poppingly vibrant green. She had never encouraged him. That intense color, that overt proclamation of his interest, was the equivalent of a leer. He watched her drink. “You’re looking very relaxed,” he told her.

  His clothes did not match his words, and Kirsten decided to address only the latter. “Relaxed” certainly overstated things. She could admit, however, to being relieved. “I’m just happy to be here,” she said.

  To be anywhere, in fact, besides hyperspace—merely thinking of the nothingness made her twitchy. After finding their way across ten light-years, wasn’t she entitled to feel a bit of accomplishment and relief?

  Eric said, “ ‘Here’ is going to be a disappointment. You getting us here, and presumably home again, may be the highlight of the whole trip.”

  Was he mocking her? She had rejected his advances in training, politely, she thought. No word had been spoken; only clothing styles and body language expressed her disinterest. His attitude ever since, whenever they were alone, was inappropriate. It might be suggestive, or sarcastic, or belittling, or something else entirely.

  Nessus had assembled a very bright crew—considering them individually. Perhaps it was too much to expect him to anticipate how three isolated Colonists would interact. Or maybe—Omar having a long-term relationship contract back on the continent of Arcadia on NP4—maybe Nessus considered himself a matchmaker between her and Eric. That idea made her fume.

  She hiked enough to be fit, she supposed, although the treadmill in the relax room was a poor substitute for cross-country treks. Maybe she cleaned up all right. Neither was justification for Eric’s unwelcome persistence. Regardless, the easiest way to deal with him was usually to ignore the subtext.

  She said, “What we’re here to do is important.”

  “In a way,” he answered. “In the way that practice is always important.”

  She knew she was staring. Words refused to come.

  “No, really. The mission can’t be anything else.” Eric perched on a corner of the room’s small table. “We were sent to assess this specific solar system, of all those along the Fleet’s path. No artifacts are visible, not from the Fleet, not even here on the borders of the solar system. There are only alien radio signals, too faint and intermittent to interpret over just a few light-years.”

  “Right,” she agreed, wondering where he was going.

  “Trust your friendly neighborhood engineer on this: The aliens’ equipment could not be any more primitive.” She must not have looked trusting, because he continued. “The signals we came ten light-years to investigate were scarcely more than big sparks. They evidently encode some kind of on/off system for sending information.

  “These guys on their ice world are hardly a threat to anyone
. We learn, or fail to learn, anything interesting about them, and get our final grade. If we’re lucky, we show ourselves worthy of exploring someplace that really might be a potential threat. Regardless, the Fleet flies past in seventy years, by then accelerated up to three-tenths light-speed. If realistically there were any danger here, would Nessus be willing, even eager, to go for a closer look?”

  Was Eric right? Might this be simply one more exercise? In her disappointment, Kirsten almost overlooked a subtlety. “Were, you said. Their signals were little more than big sparks. Are they something different now?”

  “Well, yes,” he admitted. “The signals are better controlled now. They’ve substituted an absurdly convoluted transmission scheme. The broadcasts remain staticky. They use spectrum with horrible inefficiency. Even their most sophisticated format has a slow, jerky frame rate, low resolution, and it’s all in two dimensions. The content is mapped into an analog representation, of all unlikely choices. Despite the many oddities, I have most of the details worked out.”

  Big sparks was a much shorter description. Was he implying progress? “You’re describing video,” she finally said.

  “True, in the sense a sled is like Explorer. They’re both for transportation.” Eric slid off the table. “Look, Kirsten, I didn’t mean to upset you. Forget I said anything. Be as relaxed or tense as you wish, and I won’t comment further.” With a patronizing smirk, he was out the door and into the corridor.

  Hyperdrive had brought Explorer across ten light-years, so Eric’s big sparks were first broadcast just ten years ago. Was sparks-to-video in ten years fast development? The Concordance’s vastly superior technology was old, mature long before the first Colonists arrived at the Fleet of Worlds. Maybe she could extract something germane about technical history from Explorer’s data archives.

  Eric could be obnoxious and offensive, but he was also damned smart and he paid attention to politics. What if he were right? What if this whole trip was an elaborate exercise? She presumed that by getting them here she personally had passed. It did not seem like enough. Surely an equally important part of the test was threat assessment. The mission would flunk if they too quickly dismissed the aliens as a prospective danger.