Chindi

by Jack McDevitt

  “That’s pretty far out,” said George.

  “So what we’re saying,” said Alyx, “is that whoever’s been planting all these satellites lives out at this class-K?”

  Tor shook his head. “That sounds like the same assumption we made about Safe Harbor.”

  Bill cleared his throat. He wasn’t finished.

  “What else, Bill?” said Hutch.

  “There’s a possibility the signal just goes through the 97 system. There’s another target directly beyond.”

  George sighed. “Which is what?”

  “The Maritime Cluster.”

  “How far’s that?” asked Alyx.

  “Twelve thousand light-years,” said Hutch. Bill’s eyebrows drew together, indicating that she was off by a thousand or two. But he said nothing.

  Nick’s voice came over the commlink: “They have to be in the biozone, don’t they? Would this signal carry twelve thousand light-years?”

  They looked at one another, a general confession that no one really knew. Not even Bill ventured a guess.

  “Well,” said Hutch, “we sure as hell can’t ride out to the Maritimes.”

  “How long would it take?” asked Alyx.

  “Two, two-and-a-half years.”

  “Take a good book,” said Nick.

  Hutch listened with misgivings while they began to talk up a pursuit to 97. What’s to lose? Only a few days? Who knows what might be out there? If we don’t find anything, we just turn around. No big deal.

  Within a few minutes they’d cast aside all hesitation and were ready to go.

  It was as if the loss of the Condor had happened in another reality. The problem was that despite everything they were accustomed to a friendly, safe environment. The notion that they could be bitten was foreign to them. They’d been living quiet, safe lives while she’d been watching people make fatal mistakes. Richard Wald delaying too long at Quraqua, George Hackett underestimating the crabs on Beta Pac, Gregory MacAllister talking his way onto a lander at Deepsix. She’d made a few herself, and people had died. She was more cautious now, and she was no longer sure she wanted to find out what had happened to Preach. He was gone, and nothing would change that. “We have enough fuel and stores to make the flight,” she said. “But there’s risk involved.”

  “What risk?” asked George in a condescending tone.

  “We still don’t know what killed the Condor.”

  Pete shrugged it off. “It looks as if it was a defective engine. I understand the Condor wasn’t an Academy vessel.”

  “That’s true,” she said.

  “Probably, it didn’t have your maintenance standards. Independent owner-operator. What could you expect?”

  “Brawley was an accomplished professional,” she said.

  “Sorry,” said Pete. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “Well,” said George, “we have a decision to make. And I think if we turned around now and headed home, we’d all regret it. For the rest of our lives.”

  They nodded. Pete and Hutch shook hands, and Tor smiled brightly at her. “Whatever it takes,” he said.

  Hutch walked down to mission control and took George aside. “I’ll be making a log entry recommending formally against proceeding farther.”

  He looked bemused. It was time for everyone to be an adult. “Hutch,” he said, “you have to know what this means.”

  “I know what it means. I’m concerned about safety. And liability. You need to understand we’re chasing an unknown. We’ve no idea what we’re looking for, or what its capabilities might be. Since we lost the other ship, we do have a pretty good idea about its inclinations.”

  “Hutch,” he said, “I wish you could hear yourself. The engine room exploded. It wasn’t gremlins.”

  “Whatever it might or might not have been, before we continue with this mission, I’m going to draft a statement that I’ll want each member of your team to sign. It will stipulate that he or she understands the risk and wishes to go on anyway. And that the Academy, and the captain, are to be held blameless.”

  Some of the color drained from his face. “Of course,” he said. “If you insist. But you really don’t have to do this.”

  “We’ll do it anyway. And I should add that if anybody refuses, or says he doesn’t want to go on, we’ll go no farther.”

  “That won’t happen.” He was annoyed and defensive. “You’re overreacting, Hutch.”

  THE MEMPHIS COMPLETED a final orbit of Safe Harbor. They looked down on the cloud-shrouded world, and Herman wondered what name its inhabitants had given it.

  “Earth,” said Alyx.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Whatever the actual term was,” she said, “it translates to Earth. Home.”

  THE MEMPHIS WOULD need roughly forty-five minutes at an acceleration slightly over 3g to get up to jump mode. Although that would have been intolerable in an unshielded vehicle, the same technology that provided artificial gravity also dampened acceleration forces to about 15 percent. Although that was well within the tolerance range, and not even particularly uncomfortable, it was enough to require restraints. One did not want to toss off a beer and a sandwich during the operation. Consequently, acceleration to jump was always scheduled between meals, and was avoided, if at all possible, during sleeping hours. And passengers were warned sufficiently in advance that they might want to think about visiting the washroom.

  Within minutes after Hutch had announced they were ready to begin their voyage to 97, which meant acceleration was about to commence, Alyx showed up on the bridge.

  Since the loss of the Condor, George and his people seemed to have developed a sense that she shouldn’t be left alone. So they took turns keeping her company. Not commiserating, not being reassuring, but simply engaging in small talk and being pleasantly congenial.

  Hutch, who was something of a loner, would have preferred to be talking with Bill rather than with someone who felt he had to make conversation. But she appreciated the effort and concealed her feelings.

  Alyx was explaining how this was her first time traveling away from Earth. “It’s been a scary experience,” she admitted.

  “You’ve hidden it well,” Hutch said. That wasn’t exactly true, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

  “Thanks. But the truth is, I’ve been petrified since we left home. I don’t really like anything where I can’t put my leg out the door and touch the ground.”

  When Hutch laughed politely, she insisted she was serious. “I want to die in bed,” she said with a mischievous smile. “On my back.” Like most women, Hutch was never entirely comfortable in the presence of a beautiful rival. Her reaction to Alyx, however, was colored by the woman’s intelligence and warmth, and maybe her vulnerability. It was hard not to like her.

  “How did you get involved with the Contact Society?” Hutch asked. “Somehow you don’t seem the type.”

  “Oh?” Her lips held the sound for a long moment. “Are we a type?”

  Hutch grinned, and while she tried to come up with an inoffensive answer, Alyx said, “Heads up, shrink loose on the bridge.” Her eyes drifted shut. “Well, I guess we are a fairly strange bunch, aren’t we?”

  “Well, um—”

  “Chasing little green men is a bit far out.”

  “A little.”

  “I know. But look what you’ve been doing for a living.”

  “How do you mean?” said Hutch. “I just carry people and supplies back and forth from research stations.”

  “Where they spend most of their time digging up ruins.”

  “And…?”

  “Why do they do that? So they can learn something about the cultures that once existed there, right?”

  “Right. But that’s what archeologists do.”

  “And that tends to be the way we think about aliens, isn’t it? They’re gone. Dead and buried.”

  “Except for the Noks.”

  “Right. Except for the idiots. The ones that
are gone, we’d like to know what they thought about art, whether they had organized games, what their family life was like, whether they had families. We’d like to know how they governed themselves, whether they believed in the supernatural, what they made of creation. Whether they had music. Do the Noks have music?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Not even drums?”

  “No. No music. No drums. No dancing.”

  “No wonder they’re always at war.”

  They shared a laugh. And Alyx crossed one leg over the other. “You think I’m a fanatic, don’t you?”

  “No, I think you’re unusual, though.”

  “You don’t have to hide it, Hutch. I have become something of a nut. I know that.”

  “I’d never suggest,” said Hutch, “that trying to make contact with a bona fide intelligence wouldn’t be worthwhile. Probably it would be the all-time supreme event. But the odds are so long. All the places we’ve looked for so many years, and all we have are a few Noks and some ruins.”

  “So the only way to exchange views with an alien intelligence is to dig up the pieces afterward.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You’re implying it.”

  “No,” said Hutch. “What I’m saying is that the chance of finding them alive is extremely remote. It’s close to betting on a lottery.” She took a deep breath. “Civilizations seem to be rare. At least part of the reason might be that they’re short-lived.”

  She nodded. “I know. But we have found evidence of others like ourselves. The Monument-Makers. And the Hawks. They’re out there somewhere.”

  “Maybe. The Monument-Makers are now nothing more than a few savages wandering around the forests of Beta Pac trying to hunt meals. And the Hawks, we just don’t know.” Evidence for their existence had been found on and around Deepsix. But they remained a mystery. “It just seems to me that you could spend the rest of your life looking and not find very much.”

  “But the pleasure, Hutch, is in the hunt.”

  “I suppose.”

  “And if we don’t look, we’ll never find them.”

  Hutch wasn’t so sure. When we encounter our first real aliens, she thought, it’s going to be pure accident. It’ll happen one day when we turn a corner and they’ll be there and we’ll shake hands or whatever, and a real first contact will be made. But she didn’t think that any concerted effort would succeed. What would happen is that people like George and Alyx would grow old and die chasing a dream. Although there were probably worse things to do with one’s life.

  “You don’t agree,” said Alyx.

  “It’s not my call. But you’ll want to belt down. We’re ready to go.”

  Alyx sat back, punched the button, and the harness settled around her.

  “I hope,” said Hutch, “you find what you’re looking for.”

  TOR STILL LIKED her.

  Hutch had realized from the first that Tor’s appearance on the mission she was piloting had been no coincidence. But he’d behaved, had waited for her to send him a signal that his attentions would be welcome, and had carefully refrained from doing anything to put her on the spot. For that she was grateful.

  Yet maybe she wasn’t. Given different circumstances, given some privacy, and a chance to be apart as well as together, then she might have encouraged him.

  She’d enjoyed their time together, and as she looked back on it, she wondered whether she hadn’t been a bit hasty walking away from him.

  He had been an unsuccessful artist with a lot of ambition and, she had thought, limited talent when they’d known each other a few years back in Arlington. It hadn’t been much of a romance, really. A few dinners, a couple of trips to the theater, and not much else. He was quiet, unassuming, not nearly as aggressive as the people who had been wandering into and out of her life over the last few years.

  At the time she was busy with her career, and involved with a couple of heartier males. One she’d lost interest in, one had died. And somehow there had been neither the time nor the passion for Tor. Now she wondered.

  They’d had a heart-to-heart one evening in which she’d pleaded her usual story. Terribly busy. Hectic schedule. Out of town all the time. You know how it is. He sent flowers afterward, with a card that she had kept. Love ya, it said. The only time he had used the word. And with the colloquial form of the pronoun, more or less negating the sentiment. Taking no chances.

  She hadn’t seen him again until he’d boarded the ship at Outpost.

  Now, of course, he was making another pitch, and doing it at the worst possible time. He often lost his color in her presence, and his voice tended to change register. But there was something ineffably attractive in his shyness, and in the impossibility, under ship conditions, of attempting the usual ploy of suggesting they go for a walk together, or have dinner down at the bistro. There was no way he could get her off to one side, and he must have known that before he came. Moreover, she couldn’t help contrasting him with Preach.

  But he obviously hoped to find a way to spend some time with her alone, preferably away from the bridge (where the atmosphere wasn’t right). His solution, when it came, surprised her.

  “Is it possible,” he asked, “to go out onto the hull? I mean, does it violate any regulations?”

  “On the hull?” They were lounging in the common room, with several others. “No,” she said, drawing the word out, “it doesn’t violate anything. But why would you want to go outside? There’s nothing there.” She’d heard the question before from adventurous passengers, but never during hyperflight.

  “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” he said.

  He was looking directly into her eyes, and she wondered what he saw there. “I don’t see why not,” she said. “If you really want to. But I’ll have to go out with you.”

  He nodded, as though he were willing to live with the encumbrance. “I hate to inconvenience you, Hutch.”

  She had to give him credit. Nobody at the table seemed to recognize that anything out of the ordinary was happening. “When would you like to go?”

  He delivered an oblique smile. “I’m not busy at the moment. If it’s convenient.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  Alyx asked whether there was any danger, and she reassured her. Then they strolled down to the cargo airlock.

  He was wearing loafers and shorts and a soft blue pullover shirt that draped easily over shoulders and breast. And he took a minute to pick up his easel and a pad.

  “There’s not much out there,” she said.

  He was adjusting his e-suit. “That’s what makes it interesting.”

  She handed him a pair of grip shoes, and he slipped out of the loafers. When he was ready she opened up and they went out through the airlock onto the hull. The mist rolled over them.

  The ship’s artificial gravity field vanished, and she felt her organs begin to rise.

  “Is this the first time you’ve been outside?” he asked, looking around at the fog. “In this?”

  It was. She had never before left a ship when it was in the sack. Didn’t know anybody who had. “We might be making history,” she said.

  He blinked and looked away, over her shoulder. “Something moved over there,” he said, pointing. “In the cloud bank.”

  “It’s an illusion. It’s the reason we don’t usually run the view panels during transition. People see things. They get unnerved.”

  “I wasn’t getting unnerved.” He started setting up his easel. There were magnetic caps on the legs.

  She looked around at the fog, moving slowly across the hull, front to rear. “What can you possibly make of this?”

  He weaved a little, back and forth, a kind of half dance step, inspecting her, inspecting the mist. “It just takes a little talent. Is it always like this? Always this dense?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Pretty much.”

  He produced his trademark charcoal and sketched, in a single movement, a section of the ship’
s hull. He studied Hutch for a few seconds, and drew her eyes and a slice of jawline, the silhouette of her hair, and added some haze.

  “It’s quite nice,” she said. He’d come a long way since the old days in Arlington.

  He smiled, yes, it is pretty good, isn’t it? And he kept working. Filling in details. The fog in the sketch grew damp, the ship solid, the eyes luminous. When he’d finished, he signed his name, Tor, and stepped back to see whether anything additional needed to be done. To give her a better view.

  She thought he was going to tear the sheet off and give it to her. But he simply stood admiring it, and then removed a cover from his vest and pulled it over the sketch.

  “Are we finished?” she asked.

  “I think that about does it.” He pulled the easel free of the hull and looked toward the airlock.

  Disappointed, Hutch hesitated. In that moment, she wanted to embrace him. But he turned away, and the moment was gone.

  He dug into his vest with his free hand and produced a coin. A nickel-plated dollar. He glanced at her and out into the mist and she saw what he was going to do. “Make a wish,” she said.

  He nodded. “I already have.” He lobbed the coin into the fog.

  She watched it disappear, and felt a sense of loss for which she couldn’t account. “You know, Tor,” she said, “we’ll be traveling a little bit faster when we come out of our jump.”

  He looked amused. She was kidding him.

  “No. Seriously.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You ever hear of the Greenwater Effect?”

  “No. I can’t say I have.”

  “But you know who Jules Greenwater was?”

  “He had something to do with transdimensional travel.”

  “He was one of the pioneers. He established the principle that linear momentum is always preserved during hyperflight. Whatever momentum you have going in, you have coming out.”

  He looked off in the direction the coin had gone. “I’m not sure I follow what you’re saying.”

  “The momentum of the coin is preserved. It gets transferred to the Memphis. So the ship is traveling that much faster when it makes the jump back into sublight.”

  “By a dollar.”

  “Yes.”