by J. N. Chaney
In this case, it would literally be easier to get forgiveness than permission.
“We can provide you with copies of our star charts that encompass your space, and that for several light-years around it. For reasons I’m sure you’ll understand, we won’t provide any information about our own space.”
He felt Brid and Dart both look at him, surprised, but he ignored them.
Sophat leaned toward one of his advisors, whispered something, and had something whispered back. The act was becoming an irritation, but Thorn smiled blandly, waiting for form to be observed.
“That is acceptable,” the Danzur finally said. “Your caution regarding your own territorial integrity is perfectly understandable.”
They concluded their meeting, with the understanding they would exchange data in one Danzur day, which was just over twenty-eight hours. Until then, Thorn and the others could enjoy the hospitality of the Danzur—and study them, just as Thorn knew the Danzur fully intended to do with them in return.
Thorn and the others were invited to a formal dinner, in the same room where they’d spoken to Sophat and his advisors earlier. It appeared that they weren’t going to be allowed any further into the orbital station, or down to the surface—which was fine by Thorn, since he didn’t want this to turn into an involved diplomatic mission. He was, after all, keenly aware that he was not a diplomat, and probably shouldn’t portray himself as one.
It turned out that the Danzur were strict vegetarians. They seemed alright with Dart using a portable scanner to confirm none of it would be toxic to the humans, and it all proved to be edible, with some of the items eliciting approving grins from the human diners. Thorn picked at an item that resembled a carrot crossed with a human ear, chewed meditatively, and pronounced it good. The Danzur watched him with delight as he tried almost everything on the table. He drew the line at a greasy bean that quivered in oily broth.
“Smells like locker rooms and failure,” Thorn muttered to himself, then smiled brightly when Dart spooned more of the carrots-ears onto his plate. That, he could manage, and easily.
“And the gym mats,” Mol said.
“How would you know?”
“Don’t ask,” Mol said, grinning.
As dinner ended, Sophat tapped a chime. Thorn and company focused their attention on them. The Danzur spoke—at length—about the birth of a new relationship between his people, and humans, the wonderful opportunities it presented, and so on and so on. Somehow, despite the fluffy, feel-good nature of the speech, he still managed to work a shocking amount of bureaucratic bloat into each sentence, a true act of governmental wizardry.
Mol leaned close to Thorn, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I feel really sorry for whatever diplomatic types end up dealing with this. I hope they’re the especially patient sort.”
Thorn just nodded. As Sophat wound down his speech, he gestured to one of his underlings. The chosen Danzur nodded, then crossed to Thorn, holding out a thin, flexible sheet that resembled rice paper. Thorn accepted it with a somber nod, then examined it.
It showed a schematic of what was obviously the Danzur system, with an arcing trajectory making a graceful sweep around the gas giant. On the reverse side, he found a grainy image of what could only be the Pool of Stars.
“These observations were made by our Astronomical Directorate,” Sophat said. “Your ship passed through our system approximately thirty-eight cycles ago.”
Dart lifted a hand, trying to interrupt in a polite way. “An obviously alien ship passed through your system, but it only rated some passing observations? Weren’t you curious what it was, where it came from, that sort of thing?”
“We are aware that other spacefaring races exist, and periodically note their vessels passing through, or near, our system. Yours was merely one of many.”
Thorn frowned at that. Many? Who, exactly, owned these many ships passing through the Danzur system? And why?
And why had the Pool of Stars done so? Thorn was no navigator, but he knew enough about spaceflight to recognize a deliberate gravitational slingshot maneuver. Someone had piloted the ship on a very specific trajectory, intended to accelerate it by stealing some angular momentum from the gas giant. The chances of an out-of-control, drifting Pool just happening to fluke into the maneuver by itself, without someone—or something—piloting it was remote barely began to cut it.
He put the questions aside and gave what he hoped was a pleasant look of thanks. “Once more, Sophat, we thank you. We’re prepared to transmit the star charts we discussed to you, since I don’t think we have any compatible data storage devices.”
Sophat offered an acknowledgement. Thorn left it to Brid and Dart to work out the details of the transfer.
They all clambered back aboard the Gyrfalcon and tried to wind down, burping grandly from the vast array of Danzur dishes.
“I thought about going into the Diplomatic Corps once,” Brid said, as they reconfigured the Gyrfalcon’s cabin for sleeping. “They were only interested in Joiners, though.”
“Being able to read the minds of those sitting across the table is a handy negotiating trick,” Dart said, and Brid nodded.
“For sure.” She glanced at Thorn. “Hey, sir, did you try some Joining on our hosts? See if you could find out what makes them tick?”
Thorn shook his head. “Nope. For all I know, they might be able to detect it. And the last thing I want to have to report back to Fleet is a sticky diplomatic incident.”
Mol gave a sly smile. “We do have what we came here for now, though.”
“Okay, I might have been thinking about trying it right after we get underway,” Thorn admitted.
Using Joining to peer into the minds of the Danzur—assuming it was even possible—certainly might reveal useful things to know. But those weren’t the most interesting questions here. The ones that were revolved around the Pool of Stars, and her mysterious journey through the system, as she changed course and accelerated to—
Where? Where was she going? And who was taking her there?
13
As it turned out, Thorn could scry into the minds of the Danzur. As the Gyrfalcon accelerated away from their home world, he ventured a broad, unfocused Joining, one intended to observe conscious thoughts of any Danzur about the orbital platform. He reasoned that, if Sophat and his minions were being deceptive, or even harbored some antagonism toward them, he should at least be able to sense that—and hopefully do it without the Danzur even being aware of it.
As it turned out, the Danzur were just as stilted, hidebound and, frankly, boring in the way they thought, as they were face-to-face.
“Seriously, their biggest concern seems to be a whole bunch of forms they have to write and reports they have to fill out because of our visit,” Thorn said. “I didn’t find even a hint of them lying to us. If anything, our willingness to engage in proper channels seemed to excite them, almost a fuzz of joy in each thought.” Thorn snorted, grinning. “Imagine that—taking happiness from layers of governmental busybodies. Their attention to detail is . . . quite something.”
“Which means this data for the Pool of Stars must be correct,” Dart said.
Trixie cut in. “Actually, all it really means is that they believe those data are accurate, not that they are.”
Thorn smiled. “Trixie, you’re absolutely right. The trouble is that if they genuinely believe it, then as far as they’re concerned, they’re absolutely telling us the truth.”
“Which means,” Mol said, “we want to follow that ship, right?”
“We do,” Thorn said. “And that shouldn’t be too difficult, right? At the velocity recorded for her by the Danzur, she couldn’t be very far outside this system at all.”
“I’ve calculated an intercept trajectory,” Trixie said. “Any time you guys are ready, we can start the big chase, kids.”
Mol snorted. “Not much of a chase. Hell, we should be able to pick her up on our sensors pretty soon.”
Thorn
settled back into the g-couch as Mol and Trixie guided the Gyrfalcon onto a new trajectory, one that would intersect, and then follow, the one recorded by the Danzur for the Pool of Stars.
As they swept past the sprawling glory of the gas giant, Thorn noticed Mol giving her panel a heated stare.
“Something wrong?”
She raised a finger, tapped the controls in an irritated staccato, then switched the Gyrfalcon’s sensors into full-power active mode for a few seconds before shutting them down with a final sweep of her hand. Banging away with active sensors essentially turned the fighter into a powerful beacon, announcing her presence to anyone who happened to be looking. As the data returns came sluicing back, Mol’s face became even gloomier.
She looked up at Thorn. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“No Pool of Stars,” she said, shaking her head. “Based on what we got from the Danzur, we should know pretty much exactly where she is, within a few light-seconds, anyway. But there’s nothing there.”
Brid leaned forward. “Maybe she made another course change.”
“Wouldn’t matter,” Mol said. “She can only accelerate so much, which means there’s a limited volume of space where she could be. But there’s nothing.”
It was Thorn’s turn to look quizzical. “Could she have crashed into something?” he asked, but he answered his own question with one look at the display. Orbital mechanics were complicated, but everything obeyed certain laws. There simply were no planetary bodies she could have hit. “Actually, never mind,” he said. “I can see she couldn’t have. Can’t hit what’s not there.”
“Maybe she slammed into something passing through the Kuiper belt,” Brid suggested, but Trixie answered.
“Highly unlikely. The average density of objects in the Belt is about one per million cubic kilometers. The chances of the Pool of Stars smacking into one of them are—let’s just they’re not zero, but that’s about it.”
“Okay,” Thorn said, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “If she hasn’t been destroyed, then she must be out there. The only other possibility is that she used her Alcubierre drive to hop away—where, we don’t know, but that places some limits on the second search grid.”
“Which puts us back at square one,” Dart said, sighing.
“Not necessarily,” Mol replied. “I say we follow her trajectory anyway. There are two systems her course would pass through, one about three light-years away, the other about five. Kinda stands to reason she’d follow a trajectory she started, right?”
“This would only work if her Alcubierre drive was actually working, though,” Brid said. “And, as far as we know, it wasn’t.”
“That was kind of the whole problem, wasn’t it?” Dart asked.
Thorn shrugged. “Maybe the crew got it working again. Or maybe they were helped.”
“By whom?” Brid asked. “The Danzur are the only other race out here, and they aren’t even trans-light capable yet.”
“Or at least that’s what they told us,” Mol replied.
Thorn gave her a puzzled look. “You saying we have reason to doubt that?”
Mol looked at the control panel. “Trixie?”
“Yeah, so, when an Alcubierre drive that’s running even a little off spec travels through space, it generates not just the big wave that pushes its separate, little reality bubble along, but also lots of little ones,” the AI said. “It’s kind of like dropping a rock or something in water. If it’s something small and streamlined, it makes only a little splash and a few ripples. But if it’s something bigger and flatter, then it makes a big kerplunk, and lots of little ripples.”
“That’s why drive engineers are so obsessive about keeping their Alcubierre rigs tuned up, like they’re fine musical instruments,” Mol said. “The more out of spec they are, the more they waste energy, burn fuel, and leave a noticeable trail through space.”
“Go on,” Thorn said.
“Well, since I didn’t have much to do sitting at the dock back there,” Trixie said, “I decided to scan the system for everything I could think of. Oh—fun fact! If you could smell the upper atmosphere of that gas giant, the mix of gases would make it smell like someone ripped a really nasty fart.”
Thorn laughed. “Anyway, Trixie—”
“Yeah. So, I found some telltale gravity waves, the kind a misaligned Alcubierre drive would leave behind it. They were really weak—in fact, I had to keep running the detector pretty much the whole time we were there just to be able to confirm it.”
“So an Alcubierre drive was operating in the Danzur system?” Thorn asked. “When?”
“Sorry, can’t tell,” Trixie replied. “Too many variables. Can’t tell anything about trajectory either, just that it was here.”
“It might very well have been our own drive,” Dart said. “From when we arrived—”
Trixie made a sound like an offended gasp, while Mol’s head snapped around. “We keep our drive running at ninety-eight percent plus efficiency,” she snapped. “There’s no way it’s our own wake.”
“Besides, the Gyrfalcon’s drive isn’t big enough to cause the ripples I detected,” Trixie said, her tone miffed. “I know that because, you know, I’d already thought of that. This was a way bigger ship than this one that caused those ripples, with a way bigger, more powerful drive.”
Dart held up his hands. “Sorry, didn’t mean to offend anyone. I’m just saying there are other things it could be. A natural phenomenon of some sort, for instance.”
“I thought of that, too,” Trixie shot back. “When things like neutron stars or black holes smack into one another, they can cause gravity waves. Those have a way greater wavelength than these ones. If this is something natural, it’s nothing we’ve ever seen before.”
“All I think Dart is saying,” Brid said, “is that we could chase ghosts all over this sector until our supplies run low and come up with nothing.”
“It’d be a lot of wasted time and effort,” Dart added.
Thorn pretended to look at the nav screen, stealing a moment to think—and not just about their next move.
“Let’s head to that closer system along the Pool’s last known course,” he finally said. “We’ve come all this way, might as well exhaust the possibilities before we head back home.”
She gave a small, jaunty salute. “Roger that. Trixie, time to do your navigational magic.”
“On it,” she said. “Oh, do you guys want some music to listen to along the way—“
They all said it at the same time.
“No!”
Thorn watched intently as the Gyrfalcon flipped back to normal space. Data began to sluice in through her sensors, sampling every emission and burst of radiation they possibly could. It took a moment for Trixie to be able to assemble a clear picture of the system—a red giant star surrounded by a lot of rocky debris in a broad halo, a pair of ice-giant planets apparently keeping it all gravitationally stable.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to VB 1096.6, a lovely little system which, if it had any habitable planets, would see them lit by the warm, romantic light of this class M star.”
“Any sign of the Pool of Stars?” Thorn asked.
“Nope, not yet,” Trixie replied. “In fact, I’m not detecting any evidence of anything that isn’t just natural background activity.”
“Seems this system just isn’t interesting enough to bother with,” Brid said. “Nowhere to live—”
“And too much radiation from that star, even if you were inclined to settle down here,” Dart added, shaking his head. “If the Pool came here, she sure as hell didn’t stick around.” He looked at Thorn. “The next system isn’t much better. You think the rads are bad here, they’d be even worse there.”
Thorn drummed his fingers on the armrest of his g-couch. “So you think we should just call it here, and head back to the Hecate.”
“It’s like we said before,” Brid replied. “We can check out the next system, and the nex
t, and the one after that, and—” She shrugged. “We’ve definitely got a mystery on our hands, that’s clear, but I don’t think we’re ever going to solve it.”
“Too much time has passed,” Dart said. “And space is just too friggin’ big.”
Thorn turned to look at Brid, then Dart. “Your suggestions are duly noted. Since we’re here, though, I think we should look around before deciding anything.”
He said it in a calm, matter of fact way, turned back forward—
Then let his awareness slip off the chain a little, encompassing nothing by the Gyrfalcon. He just let it brush quickly across the minds of everyone present, skimming only their most superficial thoughts.
Mol—no surprise. She was intently focused on considering the best approach trajectory to enter the system.
Brid and Dart—uneasy reluctance. They genuinely believed that Mol should just turn the Gyrfalcon about and start the trip home.
Huh.
Mol tapped at her controls, laying in a course that would take the Gyrfalcon close by one of the ice giants, then slingshot around it to pass through part of the debris field and make a flyby of the other planet. Trixie fine-tuned and refined it, then Mol turned to Thorn.
“Ready when you are,” she said.
Thorn nodded toward the view ahead. “Let’s do it.”
She hit the drive, and the Gyrfalcon smoothly accelerated into the lonely system, lit by the light of a forgotten star.
Thorn watched as the first ice giant, which resembled the Solar planet Uranus, fell away behind them. The panoramic view of the big planet’s azure cloud tops were a spectacular vista as Mol steered them past in a looping orbit. He’d had to remind himself to not just gawk, but actually pay attention to what the Gyrfalcon’s sensors were telling them.
Which wasn’t much. The planet had a multitude of moons, but Trixie confirmed they were just hunks of rock tugged out of the vast halo of debris around the star. None of them had any atmosphere to speak of, nor was there any sign anyone had ever visited them. Now they raced on through the debris field, Mol and Trixie threading a safe path through the drifting—