The Aeluon gestured at the scrib’s screen. It responded to her command, displaying a dizzying stream of polychromatic flashes. This had meaning to the Aeluon, assuredly, but Speaker winced at the sight, unable to look directly at it. The Aeluon gestured again, and said aloud, ‘Disable colour translation. Enable Klip audio playback.’
The scrib obeyed; a voice emerged. ‘—advising everyone to stay calm as we assess the situation.’
‘I can’t stay calm if you don’t tell me what the situation is,’ the Quelin huffed.
‘Quiet,’ the Aeluon said.
The Quelin’s frills bristled at that.
The emergency broadcast continued. ‘—refrain from calling emergency channels unless you are in actual need of assistance. We are aware of the situation and will have more information once we have properly assessed the—’ A burst of static cut the voice off. ‘—is ongoing – don’t – halt all launch – for the time—’
‘I just had this tower serviced,’ Ouloo said frantically. ‘I don’t understand; it should be working.’
‘It’s not the tower,’ Tupo said. Speaker turned the suit toward the child. Tupo was craning xyr neck out from under xyr mother’s legs to face the sky. Xe still clung to Ouloo, but xyr voice possessed the calm of a person who’d come to a terrible conclusion. ‘Look.’
The adults all looked.
The sky was nearly choked with smoke by now, offset by flashes of flame. The debris had grown thicker, and chaotic though it was, the longer Speaker looked, the more she began to see shapes. Angles. Jagged edges. The occasional glint of shattered photovoltaic blue.
‘Satellites,’ Speaker said. ‘It’s the satellites.’
Roveg stepped forward beside her, his many pointed feet tapping the ground. His voice came out a whisper. ‘It’s all the satellites.’
Day 236, GC Standard 307
SHELTER
Received message
Encryption: 0
From: GC Transit Authority – Gora System (path: 487-45411-479-4)
To: Ooli Oht Ouloo (path: 5787-598-66)
Subject: URGENT UPDATE
This is an urgent message from the Emergency Response Team aboard the GC Transit Authority Regional Management Orbiter (Gora System). As both standard ansible and Linking channels are currently unavailable, we will be communicating via the emergency beacon network for the time being. We ask that you leave your scribs locked to this channel until proper communications are restored.
This is an emergency. Please shelter within your ships, homes, or any other reinforced structure until you receive an all-clear message from the GCTA. Habitat domes may not provide adequate protection against large debris that survives reentry.
Please prepare to continue sheltering for at least one GC standard day.
At this time, the Goran satellite network is experiencing severe cascade collisions and orbital destabilisation. As this unexpected event is still developing, we cannot provide full details as to the nature of this system failure. However, we are working closely with Goran Orbital Cooperative representatives in orbit to assess the situation, and our joint agencies are working as fast as possible to provide you with more detailed information.
As the Goran Orbital Cooperative is likewise unable to access standard comms channels on the surface, the GCTA will be handling public updates for as long as necessary.
We do not yet have an estimate as to when an all-clear will be possible. We are asking all travellers to anticipate a delay of approximately one GC standard day. We understand this will cause major disruptions to travel plans, but launches and landings pose extreme risk in current conditions. Any attempts to travel to or from the Goran surface at this time will result in an immediate suspension of your pilot’s licence and possible confiscation of your vessel by the GCTA (provided your vessel remains intact).
Thank you for your patience. We are all in this together.
ROVEG
Roveg returned to his shuttle as fast as his legs would carry him. The hatch shut behind him, and he felt profound gratitude as he heard it thud into place. He stood motionless in the airlock, unsure of what should come next. He’d never been in a situation like this. He was aware that all civilised life ran on machines and constructs. Such things were the bedrock of his work, and he knew this truth well. But possessing the intellectual knowledge that infrastructure can break was a far cry from watching it break in real time. He didn’t know what to do with that.
Even so, the orbital calamity still in progress wasn’t the thing making him quietly panic – or at least, not the primary thing. No, the thought making his frills twitch and his spiracles widen was:
Am I going to be late?
‘Friend,’ he said loudly. The AI was everywhere and there was no need to yell, but shouting seemed the only reasonable thing to do under the circumstances. ‘I need to make some calculations.’ There was no point in telling the AI this. It wasn’t a command, or a question. A non-sentient model would take nothing away from the statement other than the fact that one of its computational programs would soon be running, which, in turn, would mean absolutely nothing to a utility without an agenda of its own. Roveg wasn’t talking for Friend’s sake. He was stating his intent, voicing the first step in an actionable plan. He hurried down the hall toward the control room, passing windows as he went. Through them, he could see the sky burning. A chunk of metal was briefly visible before being swallowed in the heat of its own freefall.
‘Friend, please shade the windows, maximum opacity,’ Roveg said. Friend obliged, and the plex windows shifted into a pleasing bedtime purple. The ambient lighting adjusted as well, increasing its warmth. Roveg flexed his thoracic legs in approval as he moved down the hall. It was enough to know something awful was going on. He didn’t need to look at it.
Status panels leapt to life as he entered the control room, readying themselves for his instructions. ‘Friend, please access our current travel route.’ At his command, a star chart filled the display, drawing his course in a neat brushstroke of pixels. The small yellow light that represented the Korrigoch Hrut was three-quarters of the way to its destination. ‘Please calculate our arrival date if we were to leave Gora one – no, two – standard days from now.’ The emergency alert had stated only one day, but better to be over-prepared than under.
The yellow light zipped along its course, and a series of numerical dots displayed themselves alongside (unlike language, math was something Roveg always preferred to do in Tellerain; his brain disliked translating numbers). Their results were calculated, and Friend delivered the conclusion: ‘At our current rate of fuel consumption, the altered departure date would result in an arrival time delayed by five days.’
Anxiety ran laps through Roveg’s body. He’d meticulously planned this trip to allow for a three-day buffer zone before his appointment, in case of any mishaps (plus time to rest and breathe and summon some courage). Three days had seemed generous, at the time. But now Friend was telling him he was at risk of being five days later than planned. Five days would mean he’d miss his appointment entirely. ‘How does a two-day delay result in a five-day difference in arrival time?’ he asked, trying (and failing) to keep his voice from shaking.
‘A delay at Gora is likely to cause a further delay at Bushto, which will result in you losing your reservation in the queue,’ Friend said.
‘But I made that reservation tendays ago,’ Roveg said. ‘I made it before I left home.’
‘I do not understand,’ Friend said.
Roveg took a breath, pulling air through his abdomen with deliberate slowness. In moments like these, he could understand the appeal of a thinking, conscious AI (but, of course, therein lay the danger; convenience was morality’s most cunning foe). ‘Please explain your calculation regarding the delay at Bushto,’ he said.
‘Leaving Gora on 238/307 will result in an arrival at Bushto on 242/307. Our current reservation for the Bushto tunnel hub queue is for 240/307. The local branch of the Harmag
ian Travel Office has a cancellation policy of one standard day. A 242/307 arrival will result in a cancellation of our reservation, thus—’
‘We’ll lose our spot and will need to get back in the queue. Yes, I see.’ Roveg sighed. Damn the Harmagians and their pointless bureaucracy. ‘If we increase our speed, could we arrive at Bushto by 240/307?’
Friend calculated. ‘Yes,’ the AI said. ‘An increase of travel velocity to seventy-five SUs per day would result in a 240/307 arrival.’
Cutting it close, but doable. ‘And how would that affect our fuel consumption?’
Friend calculated further. ‘Fuel consumption would increase by two hundred and fifty-eight kulks.’
At last, Roveg felt himself relax. He happened to be parked right outside a fuel depot with only two other customers present. Money wasn’t a problem, and even if it had been, an extra barrel or two of algae was a trifling price to pay for arriving on time. He’d buy all the fuel Ouloo had, if that’s what it took. He’d sell his art, his gear, everything that wasn’t an engine or an oxygen filter. He’d sell his ship after the fact, so long as he got there on time.
‘Reset our course with the current calculations for arrival date and travel velocity factored in,’ Roveg said. His voice held steady this time. He left the control room as Friend worked, and went to the kitchen to brew a full pot of mek. He didn’t usually drink the soporific stuff in such quantities, but on a day like today, it was justified.
SPEAKER
The shuttle was too small.
This hadn’t been the case in the past. Speaker had used the shuttle for its intended purpose many times – quick hops between ground and orbit, or ship to station, or ship to ship, typically ferrying supplies one way or the other, sometimes with her sister in the seat beside her. She had never found it cramped then, and the shuttle was equipped with the basics needed for unexpected circumstances such as the one she found herself in now. There was water, a pair of sleeping hammocks, plenty of dehydrated food, a decent-enough toilet, breathable air – everything you needed for a quick bail-out if need be. But right then, Speaker needed something else, something the shuttle couldn’t provide, and that lack was driving her out of her head.
She needed to move.
Speaker swung from pole to pole, her wrist-hooks hitting the metal loud and angry. She went from one side of the too-small shuttle to the other, back and forth, back and forth, always with one eye on the comms screen. A progress wheel had been spinning there for ten excruciating minutes, and any second now, it would—
The screen went white, indicating an update was on the way. Speaker shimmied down, scrambling to the console. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Come on, come on, come—’
The hull of the shuttle was thick, but a terrifying noise bled through it all the same: a crunch of impact, a hail of dirt. Speaker did not see what had happened, nor did she need to. She wasted no time in sliding down the nearest pole and bolting into the space on the floor beneath the console. She bent her head and covered the back of her neck with her arms. Something had crashed outside, and though there were no decompression alarms, no further sounds of danger, she braced all the same. She’d done this in safety drills, but never before with real cause. Her pulse pounded and her hands shook, but she locked her fingers together and shut her beak tight, waiting for whatever came next.
Nothing came next. The shuttle and the world beyond were as quiet as they’d been minutes before. This should have been a relief, but Speaker didn’t trust it. How could anyone find comfort in silence that could end without warning?
Timidly, she crawled out of the nook in which she’d sheltered, and climbed up to the nearest window to see what had caused the sound. She did not have to look hard. A crumpled mass of metal had slammed down a short distance away – far enough that she did not feel the need to inspect the outer hull, but close enough to see the unsettled dust still hanging in the thin air around it.
Speaker’s stomach churned as she thought of the incalculable variables that had led to the careening junk landing over there and not right here. She tried to still her shaking hands, tried to hush the racing horror of oh stars, what if? She closed her eyes and took a breath, then made her way back to the comms console, attempting to focus on just one heart-rending worry at a time.
Error, the comms screen read. Comms signal cannot be established with requested recipient. Atmospheric disturbance suspected. ‘No fucking kidding,’ Speaker said under her breath.
Nothing about the lack of signal was a surprise. It hadn’t been a surprise the three times before, either. The shuttle didn’t have an ansible; it had a short-range comms dish, and that required a clear, uninterrupted channel between transmitter and receiver. Given that the latter was impeded by the exponentially multiplying debris of the former, there was no way she was going to get a call out.
She tried again anyway, selecting yet another signal-searching algorithm before resuming her elevated pacing.
‘You’re okay,’ she whispered to her still-shaky self, the words becoming a rhythm as she grabbed each pole. ‘You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay.’
Tracker would know how to secure a signal, Speaker thought. Well, maybe. Maybe Tracker would have come to the same conclusion the comms screen had, that sometimes things were just too broken for even the cleverest of workarounds. But puzzling these sorts of things out was Tracker’s skill. It was why she had the name she did. She loved patterns and order; so did Speaker, but in an entirely different capacity. Where Speaker loved the weave of grammar, Tracker found solace in the march of numbers. Where Speaker treasured nuance, semantics, word roots, double meanings, Tracker feasted on riddles of calculus and the satisfaction of solution. The ends to their respective means were the same: finding the most elegant way of expressing a desire. They were two components of the same tool, in that respect. All Akarak twins were halved souls, but Speaker and Tracker’s bond was what was called a triet. ‘Straight cut’ was the literal definition, but the word in Ihreet was weighty, reverent, a way of describing a pair made whole by the other’s complement.
And now Speaker couldn’t reach her.
The screen went white, and like a fool, Speaker hurried up to it once more. Error, the screen read. Comms signal cannot be established with requested recipient. Atmospheric disturbance suspected.
‘Stars!’ she spat. ‘Dammit!’ She hit the screen with her palm and yelled in wordless frustration. This behaviour wasn’t like her. Tracker was the one who got angry, the one who popped off, in contrast to Speaker retreating inward. Tracker made noise; Speaker calmed her down. This was their balance, the flow of their emotional tide. But therein lay Speaker’s problem: the other part of herself was in the sky. It wasn’t that Speaker never left Tracker’s side. She did so often on stops like these, given her sister’s reluctance to leave the Harmony. But that was always a matter of hours. An afternoon, maybe. The stretch between waking and sleeping. She’d never been through a night without Tracker, not ever.
She thought of the times she’d awoken to a particular sound – or rather, an absence of sound. The sound of Tracker not breathing. From time to time, her struggling lungs simply forgot what they were meant to be doing, and though Tracker’s imubots were supposed to sound the alarm on her scrib if her blood oxygen dropped too low while she slept, rarely did they react as quickly as her sister beside her. There had been dozens of nights interrupted by Speaker shaking Tracker awake, helping her to sit up, pull in air, take her medicine. Tracker was often quick to fall back asleep, accustomed to it as she was. Speaker, on the other hand, never did. Commonly, she lay awake and listened until the morning hours came and Tracker got up to start her day. Only then did Speaker feel safe in returning to sleep.
Would Tracker wake up at all, Speaker thought, without her there?
Speaker swung herself to the sleeping hammocks and sat down in one. She closed her eyes. She unclenched her beak. This frenzy would not help. This was panic, and while panic was a normal sort o
f response to have when the world was falling apart, the place her mind had leapt to was unhelpful and unlikely. Tracker wasn’t an infant, and she wasn’t stupid, and the mere presence of Speaker was not what determined whether Tracker’s lungs behaved or not. Tracker was resourceful, resilient. Speaker told herself she did not need to worry like this.
She worried all the same.
Speaker rubbed her palms together. No, this would not do. She would not spend a day or however long like this – and she doubted approximately one GC standard day was an accurate estimate as to how long this would take. Approximately one GC standard day was exactly the sort of cut-and-paste response given when the authority in question wanted people to ready themselves for a long wait, in the same way that please be twenty minutes early could mean anything from instant service to an hour. One GC standard day was an empty phrase, a figure that offered fast-absorbed comfort in the foundational concepts of one and day, then defused any real meaning with the administrative application of the word approximately. Speaker had stood in enough queues and filled out enough formwork to know better than to trust phrases like that.
So, then. If the comms were a lost cause and the shuttle was already making her insane, what else could she do? What was a better use of approximately one GC standard day?
She got back on the poles, and went to find her scrib.
PEI
The eelim moulded itself around Pei as she sat down, its putty-like polymer flexing and curving around her body. Doorways had melted open in a similar fashion as she’d gone from room to room, on her way to getting off her feet. The shuttle, like all Aeluon living spaces, was an object whose interior shapes and fixtures changed to suit her needs. The item of furniture she settled into now was a large, practical piece, which could serve as a communal bench or a shared bunk by three people (or more, if you didn’t mind getting close). But for this trip, Pei had travelled alone, and that meant she could enjoy the luxury of spreading out without bumping elbows with her crew. She normally didn’t mind being crowded – comfort was so often a secondary consideration in her places of work – but with no other option than the alternative here, she had to admit it was awfully nice to have the ship to herself.
The Galaxy, and the Ground Within Page 5