The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

by Becky Chambers

  “Aha. Then you do a blind punch.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Drop a cage at one end, punch through, and find your way to the other side — which is crazy hard to do without the second cage to guide you. Once you get back out, you’re working against the clock to get the cage up. Cages are self-constructing, so all you can really do is deploy the pieces and wait a day. But still, you have to deploy it as soon as you get out. Having a cage on one end of the tunnel and none on the other makes things inside unstable. At first, it’s no problem, but the longer you wait, the faster it starts to tear. If that happens, it all goes to shit. And when the fabric of space goes to shit, you’ve got a really big problem.”

  “Like the Kaj’met Expanse.” Learning about the Kaj’met Expanse was something of a rite of passage for youngsters, the moment when you realized that space, for all its silent calm, was a dangerous place. The Kaj’met Expanse was a Harmagian territory, half the size of the Sol system, in which space had been completely rent asunder. The pictures from there were terrifying — asteroids drifting into invisible holes, planets snapped in half, a dying star leaking into a debris-crusted tear.

  “Yeah, that’s a leftover from way back when the Harmagians started building tunnels. All the first ones were blind punches. Had to be. No other way to get from system to system except for going FTL.”

  “Right,” said Rosemary, nodding. The ban against FTL was one of the oldest laws on the books, outdating the founding of the GC. While traveling faster than light was technologically possible, the logistical and social problems caused by what basically amounted to time travel far outweighed the gains. And aside from the administrative nightmare, few people were keen on a method of transportation that guaranteed everyone you knew back home would be long dead by the time you reached your destination. “But why not get between systems with a…oh, I don’t know what it’s called. The things deepods use.”

  “A pinhole drive. Right, so, a pinhole drive dips you in and out of the sublayer really fast, like a needle and thread. They basically make a bunch of tiny, temporary tunnels to get between places super fast.”

  “That much I knew.”

  “Okay. Pinhole jumps are fine with a little bitty single-person craft like a deepod, because the holes it makes are too small to do any real damage. Without a cage, the hole closes right up. Think of it like a baby blind punch, only the trajectory is mapped out with a series of marker buoys ahead of time, so the deepod is always following the exact same sublayer path. That’s also why deepods have designated travel lanes in populated areas, and why they’re equipped with multidimensional warning beacons. You don’t want a deepod jumping out of the sublayer into your hull.”

  “You can’t use pinhole drives with big ships?”

  “You can, but it’s not a good idea. Holes that big really wear on space, and if you have a lot of them relatively close together, like you would in a deepod lane, they could potentially tear into each other. As a once-in-a-while thing, doing pinhole jumps with a big ship is okay. But if you were sending something the size of our ship in and out of the sublayer as often as a deepod — yeah, that wouldn’t be good. Also, pinhole drives are expensive as hell to install, so pretty much no big ships bother with them. Now, if you really need to get somewhere fast — and I mean need, like serious business need — you can put in a request for a pinhole tug. A tug can drag a big ship to wherever it needs to be. Same risks apply, but tugs are super regulated, and they’re careful with how they use them. You have to get approval from the Transport Board to use a tug. You see tugs for things like, I dunno, if you need to get a med ship to a bunch of refugees fast, or if the government’s sending someone outside of GC space, where we don’t have tunnels. So, for ordinary stuff like tunneling, using a pinhole drive isn’t worth the cost, or the risk.”

  Rosemary took a long sip from her mug. The boring tea was growing on her. Something sweet and unassuming was the perfect compliment for the smoky buns. Dr. Chef sure knew what he was doing. “Blind punches sound pretty risky on their own, though.”

  “They are. There aren’t many tunnelers licensed to do them. That’s why we get paid well. Well enough, anyway.”

  “This ship does blind punches?” Rosemary didn’t like that idea. Burrowing through the space in between space without a clear idea of where you’d be coming back out did not sound like something she wanted to tag along for.

  “Yup. We’ll be doing one today.” She patted Rosemary’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. I know it sounds scary, but we do this all the time. Trust me, we’re super safe.”

  Trust me. This coming from the tech in a grubby jumpsuit with to-do lists written on her sleeve. Rosemary needed a little more reassurance than that. “How do you know where the ship should come back out?”

  “Well, we don’t. The best any computer program can do with a blind punch is an educated guess, and that’s not good enough. That’s why you need a Sianat Pair.”

  “You can’t do blind punches without a Navigator, not legally or practically,” said Dr. Chef. “You need someone who can comprehend what’s going on in the sublayer. Someone who can visualize what’s going on.”

  “An AI can’t do it?” Rosemary said. She knew that there were still things that technology couldn’t do, but being reminded of it always surprised her.

  “Nope. Think about it,” Kizzy said. “AIs can’t be any smarter than the people who create them. We can code in all the crazy math and theories we want, but we can’t make an AI do things that we don’t understand ourselves. And not to freak you out, but we definitely don’t understand the sublayer. We’ve got ideas about it, sure, but the only species who really gets it are the Sianat. Which means the only people who could make an AI on par with a Sianat Pair are the Sianat themselves. And they sure as hell aren’t going to do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s heresy,” Dr. Chef said. “The Sianat believe that the abilities the Whisperer gives them are sacred gifts. They believe that since the virus doesn’t affect other species, other species aren’t meant to possess those abilities. They’re happy to do the work for us, but they’re not going to share their understanding, not even with software.”

  “Interesting,” Rosemary said. Weird, she thought. “Okay, so, regardless of what kind of a punch you’re doing, isn’t it possible that you can come out not just in another place, but in another time?”

  “Absolutely,” Kizzy said. “That’s why we do our very, very best not to fuck things up. Oh, that reminds me!” She hopped off the stool and ran over to the vox in the kitchen. “Lovey, can you get me Jenks, please?”

  There was a pause. The vox snapped to life. “Mmmwha?” said Jenks on the other end.

  “Come get your smoky buns, sleepy, before I eat them all,” Kizzy said.

  “What time is it?”

  “Ninth hour, ish. You’re late.”

  “What? Are we at the punch site yet?”

  “About an hour out.”

  “Shit. Kizzy. Kizzy, I am so hungover.”

  “I know.”

  “This is entirely your fault.”

  “I know, sweetie. Come get smoky buns.”

  “Don’t ‘sweetie’ me. We’re not friends anymore. Are you in the kitchen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dr. Chef, please tell me you have some SoberUps on hand.”

  “There’s an unopened box in the med bay,” said Dr. Chef, puffing his cheeks.

  “Okay,” sighed Jenks. “Okay.” The vox clicked off.

  Dr. Chef gave Kizzy a look. “Just what did you two get up to last night?”

  Kizzy took a bite of porridge. “Waterball semi-finals. I thought it would be more fun as a drinking game.”

  “Who was playing?”

  “Skydivers versus Fast Hands. Jenks and I each picked a team, and we had to drink when the other scored.”

  “Who did you pick?”

  “Fast Hands.”

  “I take it they won?�
�

  Kizzy grinned. “By twelve.”

  Dr. Chef exhaled a disparaging rumble and fixed his beady eyes on Rosemary. “Some advice? If Kizzy ever says the words ‘you know what would be a great idea?’, ignore whatever comes after.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” Kizzy said. “All my ideas are great.”

  Dr. Chef studied Rosemary, considering something. “You know, I always sedate myself before a punch. I’ve never gotten used to the sublayer, so I find it easier to sleep through it. No one will fault you if you care to join me.”

  “Thanks,” Rosemary said, “but I think I’d like to see how it’s done.”

  “Attagirl,” said Kizzy, clapping Rosemary on the back. “Don’t you worry. It’s a kick in the head, but it’s a fun kick in the head.”

  ●

  An hour later, in the control room, Rosemary was buckling the safety harness on her chair when the Sianat Pair entered the room. Rosemary could not help but stare. She had seen pictures of Pairs before, but seeing one in the flesh was different. Ohan had a lanky, four-limbed body, with broad feet and unsettlingly long fingers. He — they walked all fours, back bowed, rather like the archival vids Rosemary had seen of Earthen primates. Ohan was covered from scalp to toenails with dense, ice blue fur, trimmed short and decorated with shaved fractal patterns that revealed coal gray skin beneath. Their eyes were enormous, long-lashed, and visibly wet (Rosemary had read the night before that overactive tear ducts were one of the Sianat virus’ many quirks). Their furry face looked relaxed, almost drugged — a look that was corroborated by their loosely-held shoulders, the slowness of their motions. They wore robes, of a sort, a snug garment so simple in design that it seemed like an afterthought. Rosemary knew it was unfair to judge other sapients by Human social norms, but Ohan gave her the impression of a stoned college student, showing up late to class in nothing but a bathrobe. She reminded herself that this stoned college student could outmatch an AI when it came to interdimensional physics.

  “There’s the other half of my team,” Sissix said with a friendly smile. “This should be a fun one, hmm?”

  Ohan nodded once toward her, moving with polite formality. “We always enjoy our work with you,” they said.

  “Hey, Ohan,” Ashby said, looking up from his control panel as the Sianat Pair took their seat. “How are you today?”

  Ohan sat hunched on their back haunches. Their joints folded up tightly, making the Pair appear much shorter than when they walked in. “Very well, thank you, Ashby,” they said. They curved their head toward Corbin, before turning their attention back to their workstation. They flicked their long fingers over the controls, bringing the visual readouts to life. Several seconds went by before they raised their head again, noticing that something in the room was different. Their head turned toward Rosemary, owl-like. “Welcome,” they said with a single nod. As they spoke, Rosemary could see a row of flat teeth. She had read that Pairs filed down their carnivorous points. The thought made her shiver.

  Rosemary returned the nod, making sure not to break their gaze. Chin down, eyes up. That was how the Linking reference said Sianats greeted others. “It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “I’m looking forward to seeing you work.”

  Ohan gave another small nod — pleased, perhaps? — and turned back to their workstation. They pulled out a scrib and a thick pixel pen. Rosemary’s eyes widened when she saw that the scrib was running a basic sketch program. They weren’t honestly going to puzzle out the inner workings of a wormhole by hand, were they?

  “Okay,” Ashby said, buckling his safety harness. “Let’s do this thing. Lovey, patch me through to the techs.”

  “You’re on,” Lovey said.

  “Roll call,” Ashby said.

  “Flight controls, go,” said Sissix.

  “Fuel check, go,” said Corbin.

  “The interspatial bore is go,” said Kizzy over the vox. “But I can’t find my crackers and you know I don’t like to do this without snacking – ”

  “Think of it next time, Kiz,” said Ashby. “Jenks?”

  Jenks’ voice chimed in. “Buoys are go.”

  “Lovey, ship status,” said Ashby.

  “All ship systems performing normally,” said Lovey. “No technical or structural malfunctions.”

  “Ohan, are you ready?”

  “We are eager to begin.”

  “Fantastic,” said Ashby. He glanced back to Rosemary. “You strapped in?”

  Rosemary nodded. She had checked the buckle three times.

  “Right then. Kizzy, start it up.”

  Deep down in the bowels of the ship, the bore awoke with a baritone howl. Rosemary was glad that Kizzy had warned her about the bore beforehand. It was the sort of sound that felt capable of ripping bulkheads apart.

  Ashby tapped the arm of his chair ten times, evenly spaced. As he tapped, a trembling grew within the hull. The thing on the underside of the ship pulsed and bellowed. The floor panels shuddered.

  With a terrible silence, the sky ripped open.

  It swallowed them.

  Rosemary looked out the window, and realized that she’d never really seen the color black before.

  “Give me a heading, Ohan,” said Sissix.

  Ohan stared at the readouts on his screen. Their hand was already darting over the scrib, writing equations in a text that Rosemary did not recognize. “Ahead sixteen-point-six ibens. Full speed, please.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” said Sissix. She threw back her feathered head with a cheer as she sent the Wayfarer hurtling through nothing.

  There was no real way to say how much time it took to build the wormhole, because, as Kizzy had said would happen, time ceased to have any meaning. There was a clock silently counting minutes and hours above the window, but within the sublayer, they were mere numbers to Rosemary. She kept feeling as if they had just arrived, only to then feel that they had been in there forever. She felt drunk, or worse, like trying to wake from a fever dream. Her vision swam and shifted. There was nothing beyond the screen, though that same nothingness sometimes seemed to shimmer with color and gauzy light. The buoys they launched blinked and drifted, like plankton caught in waves.

  Voices blurred all around her, calling out complex terms that would have meant nothing to her even if she could have processed the words at normal speed. Ohan’s voice was the only thing that remained steady, the eye of the storm, directing course changes to Sissix as their hand tirelessly scrawled numbers across the scrib.

  “All buoys deployed,” Jenks said over the vox. “We’re ready to set up the lattice.” The words seemed to hang as if the air carrying them had thickened, even though the world itself was playing back in double-time.

  “Initiate coupling,” said Ashby.

  “Ashby, I think we’ve hit a pocket,” said Sissix.

  “Get us out before we get stuck,” said Ashby.

  “Ashby, I think we’ve hit a pocket.”

  “Get us out before we get stuck.”

  “Ashby, I think we’ve hit a pocket.”

  “Get us out before we get stuck.”

  “Ashby, I think we’ve -”

  “Thirty ibens to port, now!” cried Ohan.

  The ship lurched and groaned as Sissix jolted them aside. Somehow, despite the artigrav nets, it felt as if they had flipped upside down. Or maybe that they had been upside down to begin with.

  “The hell was that?” said Ashby.

  “Temporal pocket,” said Ohan.

  “Where?”

  Ohan gave his readout screen a glance. “Twenty ibens starboard. Five and a half ibens wide. Give it a wide berth.”

  “Am doing,” Sissix said. “Good thing we didn’t get stuck.”

  Corbin scowled at his screen. “Looks like we did get stuck. Fuel levels are down point-oh-oh-six percent from where they should be.”

  “Buoys holding?” Ashby asked.

  “Holding,” Jenks and Kizzy said in tandem.

  “Ohan, wher
e’s our exit?”

  “Three-point-six ibens, ahead,” Ohan said. “Two-point-nine ibens, up. One...no, no, zero-point-seven-three ibens starboard.”

  Sissix’s claws flew over the controls. “Ready?”

  Ashby nodded. “Punch it.”

  The bellowing below returned. Everyone slammed back into their seats, eyes snapping shut. Time returned with a thud. Rosemary caught her breath, and pulled her fingernails out from the arms of her chair. She looked to the window. The view had changed. A red dwarf lay in the distance, surrounded by several planets. One was partially terraformed, with a small fleet of GC cargo carriers and transport ships clustered nearby. A new colony was being built. A sphere of blinking safety buoys hung in the space around the ship, their yellow lights directing others away from the Wayfarer’s work area.

  “And that is what we call perfect,” said Ashby. He flicked through the readouts on the panel before him. “No spatial degradation. No temporal tears. We’re exactly where and when we should be.” Sissix whooped. A double cheer came up over the vox, muffled behind Lovey’s congratulations. Ashby nodded, satisfied. “Kizzy, Jenks, I’ll leave you two to deploy the cage. The rest of you, call it a day. Great work, everybody. Well done.”

  “You know, Ashby,” said Sissix. “If memory serves, big transport ships like that one there have some nice recreational facilities for weary travelers.”

  “You don’t say,” said Ashby with a smirk. “Well, we’ve just earned ourselves a nice paycheck. I’d say that calls for a few hours off ship. That is, if Ohan and Lovey don’t mind keeping an eye on the cage for us.” The Sianat Pair and the AI both voiced their agreement.

  Sissix cupped her hands toward the vox. “Party on the carrier in two hours,” she announced. Kizzy’s jubilant cry nearly drowned out Jenks, who was moaning something about SoberUps. Sissix turned back toward Rosemary. “So, newbie. What’d you think?”

  Rosemary forced a wan smile. “It was great,” she said. She managed to turn away from the console before throwing up.