“How do you control the ship if its smart materials are damaged?”
By way of answer, Alnduul touched one of the few non-dynamic controls on the side of his chair. The section of the deck closest to the bow rose up, revealing a dense cluster of more familiar interfaces, and two Dornaani chairs. “This more conventional control station can also be raised and activated manually. There is another in the auxiliary bridge. And in the event that we lose remote sensing…” The room’s forward-sloping bulkhead seemed to ripple, then peeled back in reticulated segments. Like a lobster impossibly hitching up its skirts, it revealed the stars.
Caine smiled out through the oversized cockpit blister, then pushed himself over to the astrographic position hologram, the largest of the four. He pointed into the slowly rotating blizzard of multihued chips of light. “So, are we at the central star?”
Alnduul’s couch finished transmogrifying itself by adding a high backrest. “We are. In your catalogs, it is listed as GJ 1119.”
Caine frowned, examined the stars more closely. He had seen the center of this configuration many times before on the bridge of the Down-Under. “This system, it’s only a few shifts beyond where you picked me up.”
“That is correct.”
For a moment, Riordan wasn’t sure why this alarmed him. Then his body provided the answer: subtle signs that he’d been in long-duration cryogenic suspension. Although the pervasive fishy-glycerin taste and smell of the blood substitute was not strong, his swollen eyes painted faint halos around bright lights, and there was a persistent, tingling itch in his extremities and mucosa. “How much time has passed since the ambush at Wolf 424, Alnduul?”
The Dornaani may have paused a moment. “Thirteen weeks.”
Riordan turned to stare. “During which you’ve made—what—five shifts?” Riordan sat. The couch tried to turn into a chair; he pushed the smart fabric away. Like a spurned pet, it recoiled and lay quiet. “Alnduul, your ships can make a shift every week. What’s been happening?”
The Dornaani’s outer lids cycled very slowly. “The Collective remains divided over your visit. Upon returning to refuel, we were informed that clearance for unrestricted travel had not yet been granted.”
“Wait, are you telling me that you don’t have freedom of movement in your own systems?”
“I do, Caine Riordan. But not while carrying a human from the Consolidated Terran Republic. When your invitation was approved, I presumed freedom of movement was included. Shortly after our rendezvous, I was informed that this was not the case.” Alnduul burbled fitfully. “The events surrounding your arrival stimulated considerable debate. The Senior Arbiters of the Collective have gathered at the regional capital to deliberate upon how they wish to interact with you.”
“They’re only doing that after I’ve arrived?”
Alnduul’s mouth twisted unevenly. “I understand your frustration, and your desire to return home with Elena Corcoran as soon as possible. I can only assure you that we shall not waste a single hour in idleness.”
Riordan nodded his thanks, smiled, felt rue bend his lips. “Actually, you don’t need to accelerate my return. Hell, I’m not even sure I can go back.”
“You refer to the risk of assassination?”
“Well…that, too.”
Alnduul’s inner eyelids nictated so rapidly that they seemed to flutter. “There is a further threat to you?”
Caine looked away. “When I was on Disparity, one of the Slaasriithi worlds, my respirator was sabotaged and my lungs were infected with spores gengineered to incapacitate humans. I was as good as dead. Even the Slaasriithi physicians couldn’t help me.”
Alnduul sat in a very erect position. The focus of his large eyes was unnerving.
“They had a treatment, but it required special permission.” Riordan shrugged. “None of us thought much of it at the time.”
Alnduul’s mouth had puckered into a rigid asterisk. “They administered the theriac.”
Riordan nodded slowly. “That’s what they called it, yes.”
“And you have discovered that it has…other properties.”
Caine nodded again, shared Brolley’s findings. Alnduul sat unmoving during the silence that followed.
“Well?” Caine prompted.
Alnduul shut his eyes and left them that way, a reaction Riordan had never witnessed in a Dornaani. When Alnduul finally spoke, he did so slowly and quietly. “Since you arrived at Convocation, much of humanity’s path has been generally foreseeable. But this could not be anticipated.”
“So is the theriac a positive or a negative variable in your calculus?”
Alnduul kept his eyes closed. “It is too early to tell. The ultimate context of this event will be determined by what follows, not what came before.” He opened his eyes. “You were wise to foresee that the theriac problematizes your return to the Consolidated Terran Republic. If your leaders are prudent, they will suppress news of its existence.”
Riordan discovered a perverse impulse to become the devil’s advocate. “Don’t you think Earth has had just about enough information control for one century, Alndu—?”
“No!” It was the first time Riordan had ever heard a Dornaani raise his or her voice. “Do not be blinded by the debates over your government’s control of information about exosapients, about IRIS, about your attending Convocation, about what came before the Accord, about the impossible plenitude of green worlds. Even the question of whether or not the Ktor should be revealed as humans pales in comparison.
“This, the theriac, has the power to change everything—unpredictably, cataclysmically—in the space of a single decade. No one can ‘manage’ such news; the theriac is the social equivalent of a force majeure. Once revealed, you cannot control the effects. The most your leaders can do is to ready your species for the changes that will follow as surely as thunder follows lightning.”
During the war, Riordan had been marooned in space, but even then, he had not felt so gnawingly, chillingly isolated as he did now. “So, the theriac is not just a retroactive cure-all.”
All of Alnduul’s fingers jabbed downward. “No. It is much more than that. It confers a variety of unusual immunities. It resets and replenishes the rejuvenatory systems of your body.” The Dornaani studied the look on Riordan’s face. “No, it does not confer immortality, Caine Riordan, but you will not age as swiftly and, in time, there will be no way to conceal that discrepancy.” He looked away. “We must put this topic aside for now. Let us turn to something practical: familiarizing you with my ship and its crew.”
Caine rose, mentally readying himself for an extended meet and greet with scores of socially reserved Dornaani. “Okay, let’s start with your crew.” While I still have enough energy to do so.
“Very well. Because this is an unusual mission, my current crew is somewhat larger than usual.”
Just great. “Well then, let’s get going. We don’t want to be at it for hours.”
Alnduul stared at him. “Caine Riordan, counting myself, there are seven on the Olsloov. Afterward, I will familiarize you with our basic emergency systems, should there be a mishap during our shift to LP 60-179. Please follow me.”
Chapter Fourteen
MARCH 2124
SECOND-FIVE, ZHAL PRIME (BD +71 482 A)
Ironically, the shift to LP 60-179 marked the end of the most uneventful period that Riordan had ever spent traveling between the stars.
The transit itself was so subtle that it didn’t even wake him. The star, an unremarkable red dwarf, had no features or planets of interest, just a collection of small, sunbaked planetesimals and a single distant gas giant. The only redeeming aspect of their visit was that it lasted less than a week.
Riordan was happy to learn that the next system, BD +71 482 A, had a few elements of interest, including a marginally habitable moon orbiting a massive, tidally locked planet with a molten core. He had considered remaining awake for the shift, but a slightly larger than average meal of terres
trial foodstuffs—mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, even a passably prepared brisket—put paid to that idea; postprandial grogginess triumphed over curiosity. Caine collapsed into his couch bunk with a sated sigh several hours before transit.
* * *
Riordan awoke to a steady, insistent moan: the Olsloov’s emergency klaxon. Fighting up through both a cognitive and visual haze, he discovered he was not alone in his compartment. The most unusual of the Dornaani crew, Irzhresht, was there in a posture of readiness. Almost as tall as Caine, she was extremely thin: a byproduct of hundreds of generations of ancestors who had been born in zero gee. Her longer arms and elongated head hovered urgently over Riordan. “May I assist?” she asked.
Riordan pushed through the mental murk. “I’m…I’ll be fine.”
The Dornaani stepped back, the irregular patterns on her cream-colored skin rippling as she moved. It was simply an optical illusion—her long torso was already subtly striped and mottled—but disconcerting nonetheless. Caine rubbed hard at his eyes. “Why the alarm?”
“Difficulties with landing.” Irzhresht handed Riordan one of the flat, shining circlets that the Dornaani themselves wore when working around the ship. “Put this on. It is calibrated for you.”
Riordan placed the silvery hemicircle on the crown of his head. When he removed his hand, the minimalist victor’s laurels self-adjusted, snugging to the contours of his skull. “And what should I do with—?”
“Await instructions. Follow me.” Irzhresht exited the compartment’s already opening iris valve. Only two steps behind, Riordan noticed that her skin was becoming darker and that additional markings were becoming visible. Standing out in high relief against the ghostly slate-and-cream camo pattern was a constellation of circles (or planets? or spheres?) arrayed in a shifting dance of fractal variation. The enigmatic semiology had been orchestrated to invoke a common theme, but Riordan could not discern what that might be.
Irzhresht was hurrying aft along the curved passageway. Riordan glanced sideways as they passed a small orange hatch that led to a cluster of escape pods. “Irzhresht, where are we—?”
Alnduul’s voice interrupted, from inside Caine’s head. “Do not disturb Irzhresht unless it is absolutely necessary. She is coordinating a variety of tasks, even as you move. She is bringing you to the ventral interface bay.”
“Why? And how the hell am I hearing your voice inside my head?”
“The control circlet you are wearing stimulates your mastoid process, thereby inducing sound that emerges in your middle ear. This ensures clarity in chaotic audial environments. You are wanted in the bay to provide assistance. There is a problem with our landing.”
“Landing? We’re at the planet already? I never even felt us shift.”
“I am not surprised. You ate a considerable meal. Also, we arrived within twenty planetary diameters of our destination.”
“You mean the moon with the breathable atmosphere?”
“Yes. As per our standard operating procedure, the local port authority was given control for Olsloov’s final approach. That is the problem.”
Irzhresht turned, gestured that Riordan should proceed through a large bulkhead door. She continued on. Riordan nodded his thanks, but the spindly Dornaani was already stalking out of sight. Shrugging, Caine approached the door, and almost banged his forehead into it. Unlike the others on Olsloov, it had not opened automatically.
Alnduul sounded like he was situated between Caine’s ears. “Tell it to open.”
“Uh…‘open,’” Riordan ordered the door.
“Not with words,” Alnduul corrected. “Visualize what you wish it to do. A gesture may help focus your will.”
Riordan pushed past the implausibility of a machine capable of reading his mind, waved the door aside as he imagined it complying.
The door opened. Not far beyond, Alnduul was strapping himself into a unipiece belt-and-backpack unit. Narrow control arms sprouted from its sides, each one ending in a joystick. “Your unit is to the right of the door. Don it.”
Caine removed the device from its rack, wondered if he had ever heard anyone use the word “don” as a verb before, and fought against becoming mesmerized by the other contents of the bay. Sleek shuttle-sized craft lined the bulkhead walls, each moored in a hexagonal framework that resembled a reconfigurable geodesic grid. Impossibly small aircars fitted with clear canopies were snugged in smaller but similarly angular webworks. A wide variety of what appeared to be storage units were fixed to the deck, but Riordan could not bring himself to think of them as “crates.” Smooth-surfaced orthogonal solids, they looked more like cubist evocations of basic geometric shapes.
“Caine Riordan, greater alacrity, please. Time is short.”
Riordan finished wrestling his way into the strange backpack-belt device, felt the smart straps of the five-point harness cinch tight against his body. Now that he was actually wearing it, the device reminded him of an MMU, or manned maneuver unit. But if this was for propelling oneself in space, then—“Alnduul, if we’re about to go EVA, shouldn’t we put on spacesuits first?”
Alnduul’s extruded mouth seemed to shimmy around its axis; it was like watching a dancing lamprey, head-on. “Your conjecture is reasonable but inaccurate. We will not be operating in vacuum. We are already entering the atmosphere of the moon.” He grasped the hand controls of his unit and floated off the deck. “These are the only means of reaching the planet’s surface.”
Riordan walked behind Alnduul, frowned. “Where’s the thruster, the exhaust? I can’t even feel any heat coming off the unit.”
“That is because there is no exhaust. Hence, no heat.”
Riordan squinted. “Then how does it work?”
“It leverages gravitic forces against themselves.”
Riordan had to tell himself to resume breathing. “Are you saying this is…is some kind of antigravity device?”
Alnduul’s inner eyelids nictated once. “I am.”
Riordan shook his head at Alnduul’s affirmation, at the device that was keeping the Dornaani half a meter above the deck, at any universe in which physics could be so effortlessly and economically violated. “That’s impossible. You can’t—”
“Caine Riordan, I understand your surprise and your skepticism. Unfortunately, we do not have the time to alleviate either. This moon, Zhal Prime Second-Five, is no longer inhabited, so its port authority systems are automated. They are also malfunctioning. They have failed to recognize Olsloov’s authorization codes. Consequently, the port authority auton will not relinquish control of the helm.”
“And if we don’t correct that?”
“The port authority will either land the ship and impound it, or it will divert us into a fatal crash.”
Riordan grabbed the hand controls. “So let me guess. This, uh…this antigravity unit”—I did not just say that—“works the same way as the door: mental instructions.”
“Correct. The control grips and their arms are flexible. Physical feedback can be combined with mental instructions for greater surety and speed of operation. Activate the sensor interface.”
“How?”
“Command it into operation.”
Riordan visualized the interactive holographs he’d seen on Olsloov’s bridge. He felt faint movement near his temples. A wire-thin filament extended from either end of the control circlet. The wires illuminated, lowered a glowing curtain of light in front of his eyes that, when fully descended, became a heads-up display. He discovered that, depending upon how he focused his eyes, he could either read it in great detail, or see straight through it, much like the surface of polarized glass. “Okay,” Riordan exhaled. “I guess you’ll talk me through the rest. What’s our job?”
“To either terminate the port authority’s override of our helm controls or to update its registry database. Both of which require physical access.”
“How do we achieve that before the port authority rams us nose-first into a mountain?”
&
nbsp; Alnduul stepped closer to the uncluttered deck space at the center of the bay. “The bridge crew has created a cascade of code errors. Once released into Olsloov’s computer, they will trigger a default to manual control, at least until the port authority auton determines that the error warnings are spurious. Those few seconds are the crew’s only opportunity to land Olsloov atop the most suitable planetary feature in range.”
“So instead of letting the port authority robot crash this ship, your bridge crew is going to crash it themselves?”
Alnduul’s mouth rotated slightly. “Your optimism is inspiring. Once the ship is down, the crew will disable Olsloov’s computer. You and I will then descend and correct the flaw in the port authority’s automation.”
“How long will it take to reinitiate Olsloov’s computer?”
Alnduul’s stare became somber. “I failed to explain adequately. To ensure that Olsloov’s computer cannot be reaccessed by the port authority auton, the crew must render it physically incapable of restarting. Repairs will require several weeks. Perhaps more. I am sorry, Caine Riordan. There is no other way.”
Caine mentally adjusted the probable duration of his stay in the Collective by adding a few months. He suppressed a sigh, nodded at Alnduul. “Then let’s get going.”
Alnduul walked further out onto the expanse of empty deck. “Command the unit to activate, just enough to suspend you.”
Riordan visualized rising slowly, moved the hand controls slightly upward. His feet lifted off the deck, stopped when they were dangling a third of a meter in midair. The only sensation from the antigravity unit was a fast, smooth vibration against his back.
Irzhresht’s voice was now inside his head, also. “Alnduul, we are approaching the drift-butte. You must be away from the hull before Olsloov loses power and we begin banking.”
“Acknowledged,” Alnduul answered. “Open the bay for personnel exit.”
A seam appeared in the center of the deck. It widened swiftly, wind howling steadily louder until the aperture was three meters wide and five long. Riordan looked for doors, hinges, retracting panels: there were none. Okay, more magic tech.
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