by David Liss
“I like to think we don’t do too badly,” she said, raising her trunk. Almost certainly a smile, I decided.
Some of the aliens looked at me or pointed ocular orbs or waved sensory stalks in my general direction. I wanted to think I was being paranoid, but there was no getting around it. I heard the word “random” whispered several times.
The captain turned to look at me. “Where would you like to begin?”
What exactly was my most pressing question? I decided to start with the basics. “How do we travel faster than light?”
She rose from her chair and walked me over to where an earthworm with limbs had a station. “Mr. Zehkl, would you care to explain to our guest about our propulsion systems?”
“Sure thing,” he said. His eyestalks jiggled distractingly when he spoke. “You understand the basic problem of approaching light speed in normal space?”
I told him I did, though my understanding was, I had no doubt, limited by his standards.
“We have conventional engines that allow us to accelerate to somewhere in the range of one quarter light speed, though warnings go off like crazy once we hit velocities that risk incurring time-dilation effects. For interstellar travel, the physics is quite complicated, and there is some debate about whether we move at all or if we actually stay still while the universe moves around us. But we use technology that essentially allows us to punch holes in space-time and then navigate through the apertures we create. Right now we’re not technically in the universe, and we’re not really moving faster than light, so we’re safe from the effects of extreme speed.”
“So you create wormholes?”
His eyestalks stopped jiggling and met my gaze, and he pressed one hand to his wormy body, an evident gesture of confusion. “Worm holes?”
“Like passageways in space?” I tried again.
He thought about this for a moment, or perhaps his translator was compensating for the idea of worms, which might have struck close to home. “I think so, yes. We call it tunneling. You enter an opening, and then you come out at the determined location. It’s not quite instantaneous, but this ship can traverse nearly sixty light years in the course of a standard day.”
“Very concise, Mr. Zehkl,” the captain said, taking me by the arm and moving me away from his station. “He used to spend an hour saying basically the same thing. He’d actually explain the equations to anyone who was polite enough not to walk away.”
“Ma’am, the equations are interesting,” Zehkl called as we walked away.
The tour continued, and I spoke briefly to Wimlo, the stick insect communications officer, and then we went to the helm station, which was operated by a giant otter with a sharp and hooked beak.
“Ms. Ystip,” the captain said, “can you explain the basic functioning of the helm to Mr. Reynolds?”
“Maybe,” the creature said, in a high and distinctly feminine voice, “if he promises me a rematch in Approximate Results from Endeavors.”
“That was you?” I couldn’t suppress a smile.
“It was me,” she said. “You’re good for a beginner. If you’d like, you can meet me in the officers’ lounge after 2200 and we’ll play a few rounds.”
“I’d love that!” The humans didn’t much like me, but the beaked otter thought I was okay.
After Ystip gave me a quick rundown of how the helm works, we moved to the weapons console. Sitting there was a short and squat being with large black eyes that had no irises. A decidedly hoglike snout protruded ungracefully from its face, and it had a pair of menacing tusks on either side. It was covered with tough gray hide, and thick ropy hair, like dreadlocks, hung from its head.
“Mr. Urch,” the captain said, “please show our guest how the weapons station works.”
“Do you use weapons often?” I asked. “I thought the Confederation was peaceful.”
“We are,” the captain said, “but not everyone else is.”
Urch rose from his seat and gestured toward it. He was the same height as I was, but broad and muscular, and he held himself like he was struggling against the urge to commit unspeakable acts of violence. “Sit,” he said with a grunt.
It seemed like doing what he said was a good idea. I sat.
“Let me show you a simulation.” He pressed a few buttons on his display console, and a grid appeared, green against a black background. The outlines of two enemy ships manifested. On the right side of the panel were multiple weapons sources, while data about distance, shielding, speed, and posturing of the hostile craft scrolled on the left.
“Many ship functions are automated,” he said, “but in combat, all targeting and weapons discharge must be handled by a sentient.”
“The computer can’t do it more accurately?”
“No,” he snapped as though the question offended him. “It is standard ship design to vent radiation exhaust, which distorts an enemy’s sensor readings. There is no known way to compensate. Targeting must be done by cruder means. It’s not a task for all beings. To operate the weapons, you need a steady hand and a fierce heart.”
One of the enemy ships turned and fired some sort of weapon at us. The left side of the screen relayed information on damage. “Here is an enemy ship. It will destroy us if we do not fight back,” Urch said with a grunt. “You tap on the ship to target a particular sector.” He placed a long, clawed, and strangely delicate finger on the ship, which immediately enlarged and broke down into a dozen hexagons each marked with data like LIFE SUPPORT or ENGINES or COMMAND. He tapped ENGINES. “You then choose your weapon—the phased particle beam, or PPB; the dark-matter missile; or the plasma lance.” He tapped the PPB button; then, when the word COMMIT appeared on screen, he tapped that. A mock beam fired at the ship, and there was a simulated explosion on the screen. The ship was crippled.
“No offense,” I said, “but that looks kind of easy.”
“We’re in teaching mode,” he snorted. “Real combat is fast and chaotic and messy. Achieving a weapons lock is challenging. Do you want to try a more lifelike simulation?”
“Sure,” I said.
He pressed a few more buttons. “See what you can do, random.”
The screen cleared for a moment and then blinked back to life. Three enemy vessels appeared on the screen, and they were all turning to fire at me. It was, in fact, fast and chaotic and messy. Damage reports scrolled down the side of the screen faster than I could read them. The ship itself moved constantly, and when I reached out to touch it, it was already gone. I tried again, this time anticipating its movement and targeting its weapons systems. I then considered the relative merits of my three weapon choices, but since I had no knowledge of what each did, I wasn’t sure which way I wanted to go. While I tried to make up my mind, the screen informed me that I had been destroyed.
“Not so easy,” Urch said with a grunt.
“Can I try again?” I asked.
“I see you like to lose,” Urch told me.
I did not actually like to lose. However, I started to feel like I understood the system a little better. The setup reminded me of a much more complicated and unforgiving version of the minigames you sometimes find in sci-fi action or role-playing games. I’m not saying that playing video games somehow trained me for real space combat the way it did in the classic film The Last Starfighter, but I didn’t feel entirely lost.
When the simulation began, I focused immediately on the weapons system of the first ship and fired at it with the PPB, which missed. I still didn’t know what the difference between the weapons was, but I knew this one worked, and that was good enough for now. The ship flittered around my screen, making it difficult to get a weapons lock, but I saw a pattern to the movement after a moment, and the third time I tried, I was able to jump in an instant before it shifted position. I obtained a lock and fired the PPB and then immediately targeted the weapons systems of the two other ships. It too
k a few tries, but I was able to cripple their offensive capabilities before my ship took too much damage. Then I quickly fired at the life-support systems of each ship.
The computer informed me that the enemy forces were requesting terms of surrender. I looked up at Urch and grinned. “Easy,” I said.
He grunted.
The captain looked at the monitor. “Not bad, Mr. Reynolds. The computer gives you a sixty-seven percent efficiency rating. What is your rating, Mr. Urch?”
He scowled at me. “In actual combat situations I am rated sixty-four percent. It is a greater challenge when there are lives depending on you.”
Realizing I had just possibly made an enemy of a crazed boar creature who had claws on his fingers and whose main function on this ship was to kill people, I thought it might be a good idea to retrench. I rose and held up my hands in surrender. “I know you’re right. Anyhow, that was just beginner’s luck.”
He locked his diabolical black eyes on my far less diabolical green ones. “Luck,” he said, “runs out.”
The captain led me away before I could make any more enemies and mess up my situation on the ship any worse than I already had.
We toured the rest of the ship, and if it proved less interesting, it was still great to get a better sense of where things were and how they worked. I dragged things on as long as possible because I didn’t want to have to go back to my bunk and lie there with nothing to do except avoid the other humans—and now the angry weapons officer. The captain was obviously busy, but when she dropped me off at my door, she eyed me with concern, if I interpreted her hammerhead expression correctly.
“If you like, you can come back tomorrow when we pick up the Ganari. It won’t be exciting, but you will get to see bridge officers engage in their duties as we drop into, and then out of, relativistic space. Learning how starships work has its advantages, if you know what I mean.”
I did not know what she meant, and she must have understood my blank expression.
“Take a look at your experience points,” she said.
I made an effort to see the readout in the bottom left of my HUD, and there it was. It now read 1014/1000. My tour had earned enough points for me to level up.
I broke into a grin. “Nice. I’ll be there tomorrow.”
She put one of her heavy hands on my shoulder and locked on to my face with her huge, wide-set eyes. “I know the randoms can be made to feel isolated,” she said. “Trust me when I tell you that you don’t have to be limited by the others in your delegation. You will find many opportunities to contribute.”
• • •
I found Dr. Roop in the observation lounge, a room toward the back of the ship that had a large wall, where, I supposed, a large window would appear when we returned to normal space. Dr. Roop had set aside his Earthly business suit and now wore a pants-and-shirt-and-jacket combination of strange angles and contours, but it was, in its own alien way, quite dapper. The suit was dark olive green and the shirt red. He had a handkerchief in the jacket pocket. Everywhere he went, Dr. Roop remained a natty dresser.
He was typing away furiously on a blue keyboard projected by his data bracelet, and he showed every indication of being busy, but he looked up when I entered. “What can I do for you, Zeke?”
“I leveled up,” I told him. “I need to know what I do now.”
“Congratulations.” He cleared a space for me to sit by him. “If you concentrate your gaze at those numbers you’ll gain access to the leveling process. Pick the skill you want, and focus on it to select it. But before you do any of that, you’re going to want to use your bracelet to study the skill tree and decide how, precisely, you want to advance.”
“Where can I look at the skill tree?”
“When you go to level up, it will pull up the skill tree automatically, but we can take a look right here.” He clicked a few keys on his keyboard and a 3-D projection of a flow chart began to hover between us.
I stared at this in confusion. “I’m not sure what all this means.”
“It is rather straightforward,” he said. “If you choose strength, the nanites will make alternations to your overall musculature, and you will become stronger. If you choose to augment your hearing, you will hear more clearly and across a wider range. You can ask the system to overlay suggestions for specific career paths—for example, if you wanted to move toward a career in starship operations, you could see how best to level.”
He typed a few keys, and various intellect, agility, health, and perception skills were now glowing yellow.
“So, I become, like, a cyborg? Part machine?” I was both terrified and excited by this prospect.
“Not at all,” Dr. Roop explained. “The changes are biological. There remains no mechanical superstructure to prop up the new skills. The nanites simply alter your muscle fiber, optic nerves, synaptic firing rates, and so on in order to increase, if only marginally, your capacity in whichever skill you select. You must have some ability in the first place, of course. The members of your species cannot, for example, sense electromagnetic fields, so augmenting that skill would be pointless.”
I nodded. “Just how much stronger or smarter will I become?”
“You will likely not feel significantly different after a single leveling, or even after ten levelings, but over time they do accumulate most remarkably.”
“But how can these nanites rewrite what I am and what I can do?”
Dr. Roop widened his eyes in his giraffe smile equivalent. “We’re not entirely sure how the process is effected. We only know it works.”
Another example of Former technology, I thought. Another way in which the Confederation, as Ms. Price suggested, were inheritors of greatness rather than being great themselves. But was it so wrong that they were willing to take advantage of scraps left to them by the lords of handwavium? In his show, Colony Alpha, my father had depicted two civilizations engaged in an arms race to acquire the remnants of a mysterious and vanished culture, but it appeared that the Confederation was merely making use of the resources they had available.
“If the nanites can improve my brain functioning, couldn’t they also change who I am? Couldn’t someone use the nanites to implant ideas or turn me into an assassin against my will?”
He laughed. “That, no doubt, is something you might find in one of your science-fiction tales, Zeke, but it is not how things work in the Confederation. We’ve been using this process for centuries, and no one has ever had their personality subverted. It is not possible. Nothing is being added to your personality or emotional makeup. You remain you, only working more efficiently.”
“And what about when I go home?” I asked.
“If, in the course of your year on Confederation Central, you dedicate yourself to improving your physical condition, you will leave with more musculature than you currently possess. If you dedicate yourself to learning, you will improve your intelligence. We would not seek to take those organic improvements away from you. This is similar. You will have earned the changes you make, so they are yours. The nanites, however, will be neutralized, so you will not be able to continue to use the skill system.”
Now, that was interesting. Did I want to level up in ways that would best help me here, or so that I would have advantages when I got back to Earth? Probably the first option, since if I didn’t help my planet get into the Confederation, I’d just be wasting the opportunity I’d been given. Knowing that, however, didn’t help me figure out what skill I should choose.
“That seems like a huge decision,” I said. “Do I have to make it now?”
“No, of course not,” he said. “You’ll keep accumulating points, but if you don’t apply skills, your level won’t change. Everyone will think you are still level one. You may consider that embarrassing.”
“I don’t care about that,” I said, though of course I did. I didn’t want Charles
and the rest thinking I was stuck on level one, though I also didn’t want them to think level two was the best I could do.
I looked at the skill tree again and thought about those final options at the bottom. FORMER STRENGTH, FORMER INTELLECT, FORMER AGILITY. “Is it better to diversify,” I asked, “or to try to max out in a single skill? I mean, what if I just want to work toward being as smart as a Former?”
“You won’t reach the Former levels. It is not possible.”
“Then why are they on the chart?”
Dr. Roop lowered his neck, which I began to realize meant he was feeling apologetic or uncertain. “They are theoretical maximums, not achievable goals. You can only choose the Former achievements when you have otherwise completed seven of the trees. That means you would need to be level seventy-five. And then, having reached seventy-five, you would have to level up yet again. It cannot be done. Sentient races do not live long enough.”
“So no one has ever done it?”
“Not since the time of the Formers, and perhaps not even then. The greatest known level ever reached is sixty-six, and that was centuries ago. A being reaching sixty is a Confederation-wide media event. It happens only once or twice in a generation. I’ve never personally met anyone over level fifty-four.”
The Confederation had clearly inherited this system and not played around with it very much. “Are you telling me that with all your technology, no one has ever tweaked the system—created a god mode like in a video game—so they could max out?”
“The skill tree is one of the fundamental cornerstones of our culture. In many ways it defines who we are: beings who achieve and improve with hard work. Tampering with it would be a most serious crime.”
Bring this system to Earth, I thought, and some hacker would crack it in two weeks. Half an hour after that, you could pirate Former status on the Internet. I didn’t mention this, since it would not be doing me or my planet any favors. “What skill should I start with?” I asked.
“It depends on what you want to achieve,” he said. “If you’re not worried about how you look, it may be best to wait until you reach the station and get a better sense of what kinds of tasks you want to pursue. But don’t put it off too long. Keep in mind that accumulating skills makes reaching new levels easier. Even if you can’t sense your growing improvements, they make a difference. Perpetual hoarders keep their options open, but ultimately fall behind.”