Generations

by Tim Lebbon

  “Changed how?” Jayne asked. “Her eyes lit up? Like, greedy?”

  “At first she just went blank. Putting on a bluffer’s face, but that in itself gives away plenty.”

  “S’pose she knew what it was.”

  “An’ perhaps she didn’t think she had what it was worth to buy it from me.”

  “Huh.” Jayne frowned. “But she had at least eight people in her crew, and they were just the ones we saw.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. Someone like that would have money.”

  “You’ve got six people in your crew, and you’re broke.” Jayne grinned.

  Mal snorted. “We done here?” he asked.

  “I believe so,” Simon said. “Keep it clean and it should heal just fine.”

  “Your sister seems to know somethin’ about this map,” Jayne said to Simon. “I just came from the mess and she’s sittin’ at the table starin’ at it.”

  “What is she doing exactly?” Simon asked.

  “Like I told you, just starin’,” Jayne said. “Kaylee reckoned she was pretty feisty back in Golden’s Bane. That’s nothing new, but the map’s calmed her somewhat. She’s just… looking.”

  “We should get up there,” Simon said. He glanced at Mal, who nodded and waved him away. When Simon left the medical bay, Jayne and Mal followed.

  * * *

  Up in the mess, when Mal saw her sitting at the table he realized it was more than intrigue. The girl was gorramn hypnotized.

  And the map was no longer silent and still.

  “Everyone to the mess!” Mal shouted. On the bridge Wash heard him, and he put the call out through the tannoy. Mal heard boots on metal as the rest of the crew converged, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the girl, and the map.

  She was touching it with the fingertips of one hand, and sparks danced across her knuckles from the weird swirls and lines. It wasn’t a map in its truest form, but rather a merging of drawing, symbols, and strange sets of numbers and letters that could have been code, or perhaps coordinates.

  “What the hell?” Wash asked as he came down from the bridge.

  “Simon,” Mal said, and the Doc sat in a chair beside his sister. He held her in an embrace, careful not to touch the sheet or knock her hand away from it.

  “River, what’s happening?” Simon asked softly.

  Kaylee appeared behind them, having had the furthest to come from the engine room, and Mal heard her draw in a sharp breath.

  “You know what that is?” Jayne asked her.

  “Me? How would I know?”

  “You’re the mechanic.”

  “I know engines and ships, Jayne. Not… whatever that is.”

  “Anyone?” Mal asked.

  No one replied. Zoë stepped closer, and the others gathered around the table.

  “Doesn’t seem to be doing anything dangerous,” Zoë said.

  “I left it folded and in the clear wallet,” Mal said. “D’you open it up, River?” Her eyes didn’t even flicker.

  “River, we need to know what this is,” Simon said.

  River smiled, took her hand away and sat back, then looked directly at her brother.

  “You know what it is, silly. It’s a map.”

  “A map to where?” Mal asked. “And to what?”

  “Here and there, through the ’verse,” she said. She tapped her fingers on the table, but the map had ceased sparking. She leaned in against Simon and closed her eyes.

  “Oh, don’t go to sleep now,” Zoë said.

  “Leave her for a spell,” Mal said. “It’s that I’m interested in.”

  “It’s sorta beautiful,” Kaylee said. “Those sparks, anyway.”

  “None of you are worried about that thing?” Jayne said. They all looked to him. “It could be dangerous. Maybe she’s started a process in whatever it is. The stuff drawn on it might be a distraction, somethin’ to keep us intrigued, while it ticks away and explodes, or releases a gas. Or sends a signal to someone trackin’ us!” Jayne backed away from the table and looked around as if the Alliance were about to bushwhack them there and then.

  “How paranoid are you?” Wash asked.

  “I ain’t paranoid,” Jayne said, “I just know the whole ’verse is out to get me.”

  “I don’t think there’s any harm to it,” Zoë said. She looked closer, drawing her knife and sliding it across the table, lifting the corner of the map. No sparks emerged, and it moved like a normal sheet of paper. Thicker than some, perhaps. “Looks like it’s waxed paper of some sort, pretty heavy. Thick enough to hide some tech inside.”

  “Inside a sheet of paper?” Mal asked.

  “Maybe Alliance nanotech,” Zoë said.

  “I’ve seen something similar,” Simon said. “When I was training, there were labs developing synthetic skin that contained some sort of tech.”

  “Why would you want skin with electronics inside?” Jayne asked.

  “For the military,” Zoë said.

  “You’re saying that’s a flap of skin?” Kaylee asked.

  “Synthetic,” Zoë said. “Honey, can you get the star charts up on a tablet and bring them here?”

  Wash nodded and went back up to the bridge.

  “You see something?” Mal asked.

  “Not yet,” Zoë said. “But unless we start looking, this map’ll lead us nowhere.”

  Wash returned with a tablet, and Zoë aimed it at the map and took a picture of the part that looked like some sort of star chart. They all huddled around behind her and looked at the image. Nothing seemed to match to any of the ’verse maps stored on the tablet.

  “Not surprised,” Jayne said.

  “I’ll take the nearest likeness then search manually,” Zoë said. She sighed. “This may take some time.”

  “I got nowhere to be,” Wash said.

  “Then sit your cute behind next to me and help me scan,” Zoë said. “When we finally find—”

  “Precious sun,” River said, eyes still closed. She was frowning now, twitching, no longer asleep. “Hidden in a dead and scattered planet. Dancing through the ruins. Loaded with…” Her eyes snapped open. “Loaded with old, old people.”

  Zoë reached for the map with her knife again, sliding across the table closer to River without touching it herself.

  “Help us,” Mal said. “River? It’d be good to know what you see in the map.”

  River looked at Kaylee and smiled, her face lighting up. “I see the precious sun.”

  “Plenty of precious suns in the ’verse,” Mal said.

  “Only the precious Sun Tzu hides in a scattered planet. And oh, I need to go there. Need to go.” She closed her eyes again, but reached out and touched the edge of the map. It sparkled, light motes flowing across its surface and up her finger until they dispersed across the back of her hand. “He’s singing to me.”

  “I know those words,” Kaylee said. “Sun Tzu.”

  “So what is it?” Mal asked.

  “Hang on. Hang on.” Kaylee closed her eyes and frowned, thinking hard. Then her eyes snapped open again. “Oh my! Sun Tzu. Inara told me about it one day when she was fixin’ my hair. It was a ship, or so the legend went.”

  “What legend?” Mal asked.

  “Inara said the Sun Tzu was supposed to be one of the Generation ships that brought the survivors from Earth-That-Was,” Kaylee said.

  “And Inara knew that how?” Zoë asked.

  “She couldn’t recall where she’d heard the name,” Kaylee said. “You know Inara, meets lots of people.”

  “Five centuries ago,” Wash said. He looked at the map along with everyone else.

  “They were pretty amazing ships,” Kaylee said. “Think of all the tech. Old-Earth stuff, just sittin’ out there in a ship lost for hundreds of years. The raw materials themselves in a boat that size would be worth a fortune! And it’s said they used gold coating on some of the components of their old computers.”

  “Think of the loot,” Jayne said. “Some of t
hose Earth-That-Was antiques bring a hefty sum on the dark market.”

  Mal shivered. That sadistic bastard Niska had been a collector of such stuff. But Kaylee and Jayne were right. A ship like that, and its contents, would be worth a good sum. It was also a treasure trove of history.

  “Always had a fascination with those ships,” Mal said. “My folks first told me about ’em, and for them it was nothin’ more than an adventure story. Fact is, it’s a tale of horror.”

  “How so?” Zoë asked.

  “It was humanity on the run,” Mal said. “Desperate an’ almost hopeless. Runnin’ from Earth-That-Was, and the air they’d poisoned, and the ground they’d turned too toxic to grow food. These people were lookin’ for a new frontier, and leaving behind everything they knew. They came searching for hope, never knowin’ what they’d find.” Mal trailed off, and for a few seconds the crew were silent, each of them considering his words.

  “Wow,” Kaylee said.

  “Just think of all the bottled booze from that long ago,” Jayne said.

  “Trust you, Jayne,” Zoë said.

  “That’ll be some good whiskey,” Wash said.

  “Don’t wanna drink it. Wanna sell it to fools like you.”

  “So what do you think, sir?” Zoë asked Mal. “Worth taking a chance?”

  “I think we got nothing to lose,” Mal said. “From our run-in with the unfortunate Holly, seems the Alliance is lookin’ to recover this map. That gives us more’n a good reason to follow it, to see what they might be hidin’. Heard rumors of Alliance ships flyin’ that far out, but never saw no reason to wonder why. Now I do—perhaps they know the Sun Tzu’s out there, and they’re guardin’ it. Just imagine a whole ship from way back when. We have to see if it’s real.”

  “I haven’t seen River this focused in a while,” Simon said. “I trust what she’s saying, but I’m not sure we should go.”

  “Why not?” Mal asked.

  “She’s anxious, troubled about this, but…”

  “You trust your sister?” Mal asked, but River answered for him.

  “You all trust me,” River said.

  “I say we go,” Mal said, and he looked around at his crew.

  “We’ve got nothing else goin’ on,” Zoë said.

  “Yeah,” Wash said, “and we stocked up some on Golden’s Bane, and we got food and water to last us there and back, long as you ain’t mindin’ that food substitute for a while.”

  “Kaylee, how’s the fuel situation?” Mal asked.

  “We’re tickin’ over fine,” she said. “Ain’t the levels I’m worried about, it’s the wear ’n’ tear.”

  “We’ll get new parts. If this is real, and the ship’s still in one piece, mebbe it’ll be the find of the century.”

  “Now all we’ve got to do is figure out how to read that thing,” Wash said.

  “Oh, that’s easy,” River said, and she picked up the map in both hands. Fine tendrils of light zigged and zagged across its surface, and her eyes went wide. “I can read it simple. I see a sun, and planets and moons, and a moon that isn’t a moon anymore. Just follow me. I know the way.”

  “She’s hardly slept for seven days and she looks as fresh and lively as ever.”

  Kaylee couldn’t argue with Simon. She had been keeping an eye on River since they left Golden’s Bane, and she seemed more animated than she had in a long while. Right now she was in the cargo bay watching Mal, Zoë, and Jayne cleaning and repacking some of their equipment, weapons, and empty storage containers. Part of it was killing time, but they were also preparing for what they might find once they reached the coordinates and location indicated on the mysterious map, details of which River had communicated to Wash so that he could program their flight computer. Kaylee could hear River mumbling and giggling to herself, and she wondered whether her presence was troubling the others too.

  “She’s excited about where we’re going,” Kaylee said.

  “If they’re the correct coordinates,” Simon said.

  “Why would she lie?”

  “She has a damaged mind.”

  Simon had spoken about his sister like this before, and Kaylee didn’t like hearing it, even though all evidence pointed to it being true. River was not the same as when she’d been born. At the Academy, the Alliance had changed her, digging into her mind with multiple surgeries and other arcane procedures, and might have made her into something else entirely.

  “It’s nice to see her looking so well,” Kaylee said, and she didn’t have to glance at Simon to see the doubt on his face.

  “We’re all relying on her,” he said. “Right now it’s River who’s steering this ship. Even you, trying to find out more about that map… so have you found anything?”

  Kaylee paused before looking up from the map. It was flat on the mess table before her, an array of tools and instruments set around it. Over the past few days Mal had let her try to penetrate its mechanics and workings, on the proviso she didn’t do anything to damage it. She’d worked on it a couple of hours per day, in between maintaining the ship. She didn’t want her ship to think she had greater interest in the map, though she’d never voice that aloud. Serenity was her girl, and she was as bright and alive as most of the people Kaylee knew.

  “I’ve found out hardly anything,” Kaylee said. “It’s a real work of art. I think it’s printed on some sort of conductive material, possibly the synthetic skin Zoë was rememberin’. There’s nanotech of some kind in there, but it’s very high-end stuff, and I just can’t find any way to communicate with it. There’s a series of impressions, or printings, and they change in phase with each other, but again I can’t make out enough from them to come to any conclusions. Comparin’ the coordinates River gave us with the star charts we have on board, I can just about figure some of the locale where she’s takin’ us. It’s way out past the Rim, mostly uncharted an’ further from the core than Serenity’s ever been.”

  “Mal seems to think it’s worth it,” Simon said.

  “Oh, so do I! We only just have the fuel reserves to get there and back, but don’t think I’m scared of travelin’ that far out, Simon. It’s exciting! All the things we might see or find if it really is a Generation ship.”

  “I don’t know an awful lot about those ships.” He seemed almost embarrassed at the admission, and Kaylee wondered why he’d left it so long to say anything. Perhaps because he’d been waiting for a time when it was just the two of them alone. She hoped so.

  “Really? You were never taught about them in your schooling, or by your parents?”

  “Not in an Alliance school,” he said. “I know some of the legends, but Earth-That-Was is hardly ever mentioned once you’re living in the light of the White Sun. The Alliance regard themselves as the center of the whole human galaxy, and the story of how our ancestors all came from elsewhere is not something they’re fond of entertaining.”

  “Wow. That’s so… ignorant! Were you never curious enough to find out on your own?”

  “Not for a long time,” he said. “Not until now.”

  Kaylee sat back in her chair, stretching her back from where she’d been leaning over the map. It was nice to have Simon to talk to on his own, and good to divert her attention from the map for a while. Much as she was limiting her time examining it, she had found over the past couple of days that it was taking up too much headspace, even when she was back in the engine room. She was usually very good at compartmentalizing her activities. She worried that the map, and its strange tech, had formed something of a hold over her.

  “I’ve always loved stories of spaceships and travel, since I was a little girl,” Kaylee said. “Some of what I know is from schoolin’, but most is from me jus’… askin’ around, I guess. Speakin’ with likeminded folk. So, the Generation ships… they were really amazing creations, but they weren’t the first. When our ancestors knew they had to leave Earth-That-Was, they sent a load of terraformin’ ships on ahead to settle the planets and moons around the W
hite Sun. That took years, some say decades, and while that was happening the Generation ships were being built. This was many centuries ago, remember, when knowledge and available tech really shouldn’t’ve made them possible. There’s an idea that war advances technological know-how more than anything else, but way back then it was the loomin’ extinction of humanity that forced big advancements in engineerin’ and tech. After what they’d done to Earth-That-Was, poisonin’ its seas and skies an’ all, our ancestors had a choice—flee their world and survive, or stay behind and die.”

  “Story I heard is that people had used up Earth-That-Was and left it an empty shell.”

  “That’s pretty much it. Changes to the climate, resources all used up, air so stinky you’d die if you breathed it too long. So many’d already died, and time was runnin’ out. So they left. There were over two hundred Generation ships, so they say, all built in orbit by different nations or groups of nations, but all sharin’ the know-how to construct them. That’s what made it possible. More’n the scientific or engineering knowledge, it was the willingness to work together that allowed it to happen. Some of these ships were bigger’n I can imagine, that’s for sure. There’s tales of one called the New Tianjin which was three miles long, a mile wide, and carried fifty million people.”

  “That’s… mind-boggling. Way beyond anything we can build now. Even the largest Alliance cruiser is a fraction of that size.”

  “Why’d you think I always found the stories so interestin’? Anyway, the ships were all shapes and all pretty big, and the people on board were asleep for their long journey. They carried massive great holds full of equipment, too, old-style planetary and terraformin’ tech ready for when they arrived, just in case the ships they’d already sent on had broken down, I guess. Most ships had a human crew who lived and sometimes died en route, looking after the ships and those sleepin’ in them. A few were fully automated. They were all comin’ here, to the ’verse.”