The Greatship

by Robert Reed

  The endless wandering continued.

  Ultimately the galaxy was overhead, majestic yet still inconsequential. The suns and invisible worlds were warm dust flung across the emptiness while the Ship remained dense and rich beyond all measure. Walk, and walk. And walk. And then it found itself at the edge of another crater—the largest scar yet—and for the first time ever the walker followed a curving line, its path defined by the crater’s frozen lip.

  Bodies and machines were working deep within the ancient gouge. It watched from unseen perches, studying methods and guessing reasons for what it could not understand. The vacuum crackled with radio noise. The sense of the words began to emerge, and because language might prove useful, the walker deciphered meanings and consequences and which voices were most important. Hundreds of animals worked inside the crater—human animals dressed inside human-shaped machines. Accompanying them were tens of thousands of pure machines, while standing on the lip was a complex of prefabricated shops and habitats and fusion reactors and more humans and more robots dedicated to no purpose but repairing one minuscule portion of the Ship’s forward face.

  As the walker kneeled, unseen, a bit of cosmic grit arrived with a brilliant flash of light, digging a tiny crater not fifty little steps away.

  The danger was evident, but so were the marvels. Two narrow black tracks had been laid across the unbroken hull, obeying the flawless elegance of parallel lines. The tracks were superconductive rails that allowed heavy tanks to be dragged to this place, each tank swollen with uncured, still liquid hyperfiber. From a fresh hiding place, the walker watched a long chain of tanks arrive and drained before being set on a parallel track and sent away. The work was obviously difficult, demanding precision woven with some luck. Ever fickle, liquid hyperfiber was eager to form lasting bonds but susceptible to flaws and catastrophic embellishments. Deep down inside the crater, a brigade of artisans struggle to repair the damage—a tiny pock on the vast bow of the Ship—and their deed, epic as well as tiny, served as ringing testament to the astonishing gifts employed by those who first built the Great Ship.

  All but one of the empty tanks was sent home. The exception was damaged in a collision and then pushed aside, abandoned. Curious about that long silver tank, the walker approached and then paused, crept closer and paused again, waiting days to feel certain that no traps were waiting, no eyes watching. Then it slipped near enough to touch the crumbled body. An innate talent for mechanical affairs was awakened. Using thought and imaginary tools, it rebuilt the empty vessel. Presumably those repairs were waiting for a more convenient time. Unless the humans meant to abandon this equipment, which was not an unthinkable prospect, judging by the trash already scattered about this increasingly crowded landscape.

  One end of the tank was cracked open, the interior exposed. Slow, nearly invisible steps allowed the walker to slip inside. The cylinder was slightly less than a kilometer in length. Ignoring every danger, the walker passed through the ugly fissure, and once inside, it balanced on a surface designed to feel slick to every possible material. Yet it managed to hold its place, retaining its pose, peering into the darkness until it was sure that it was alone, which was when it let light seep out of its own body, filling the long volume with a soft cobalt-blue glow.

  Everywhere it looked, it saw itself looking back.

  The round wall was covered with distorted images of what might be a machine, or perhaps was something else. Whatever it was, the walker had no choice but to stare at itself. The tank was a trap, but instead of a secret door slamming shut, the mechanism worked by forcing an entity to gaze upon its own shape and its nature, perhaps for the first time.

  What it beheld was not unlovely.

  But how did it know beauty? What aesthetic standard was employed? And why carry such a skill among its instincts and keen talents?

  Minutes passed before the walker could free itself. But even after climbing back onto the open hull, under the stars, it remained trapped. A slow crawl gave it some distance, but after it stood it did nothing. It remained immobile, exposed, staring back at the empty, ruined tank while feeling sick with grief. Where did this obligation come from? Why care so much about a soulless object that would never function again? That piece of ruin bothered it so much that even later, even after finally walking far enough to hide both the tank and the crater beyond the horizon…its mind insisted on returning to an object that others had casually and unnecessarily cast aside.

  3

  It walked. It counted steps. It reached two million four hundred thousand and nine steps when humans suddenly appeared in their swift cars.

  The invaders settled within a hundred meters of the walker. With a storm of radio talk and the help of robots, they erected a single unblinking eye and pointed it straight above. The walker hid where it happened to be, filling a tiny crater. Unnoticed, it lay motionless as the new telescope was built and tested and linked to the growing warning system. And then the humans left, but the walker remained inside its safe hole, sprouting an array of increasingly powerful eyes.

  The sky might be untrustworthy, but there was beauty to the lie. The Great Ship was plunging into a galaxy that was increasingly brilliant and complex and dangerous. More dust and chunks of wayward ice slammed against the hull, and the bombardment would only worsen as the Ship sliced into the thick curling limb of suns. But the humans answered the dangers with increasingly powerful weapons. Telescopes watched for what was coming. Then bolts of coherent light melted the incoming ices. Ballistic rounds pulverized asteroids. Sculpted EM fields slowed the tiniest fragments and shepherded them aside. There was splendor in that endless fight. Flashes and sparkles constantly surprised the lidless eyes. Ionized plasmas generated squawks and whistles reaching across the spectrum. This was an accidental music that grew louder, urgent and carefree. But no defensive system was unbreakable. Death threatened every foolish being that stood on the bow. Each moment might be the last. Yet the scene deserved fascination and wonder, and the walker had not moved in decades, staring upwards, sprouting antennae and listening while its mind began to believe that this violent magic had a rhythm, an elegant inescapable logic, and that whatever note and whichever color came next could have been foreseen.

  That was when the voice began.

  At least that was when the walker finally noticed the soft, soft whispers.

  Certain mutterings were not part of the sky. Intuition told the walker that much. Perhaps the voice rose from the hull, or maybe it came from the chill vacuum. But more important than its origin was the quiet swift terror that defined its presence—an inarticulate, barely audible murmur that came when unexpected and vanished before any response could be offered.

  The first eleven incidents were recorded, but the walker remained silent inside its hiding place.

  But the twelfth whisper was too much. With a radio mouth formed for the occasion, and using the human language learned over the last centuries, the walker asked, “What are you?” It asked, “What do you want?” And when nothing answered, it added, “Do not bother me. Leave me alone.”

  By chance or by kindness, the request was honored.

  The walker stood and once again wandered the bow. But the Ship was burrowing into debris belts and comet clouds, and impacts made the hull shiver, and sometimes the horizon was lit up with x-ray plumes. So it returned to the stern, ready to accept the safety afforded by the Ship’s enormous bulk. Yet there were more humans than ever, and they were in constant motion, putting an end to the delicious, seemingly infinite emptiness. Following a twisting, secretive line, the walker journeyed to the nearest engine, and with cautious delight touched the mountainous nozzle at its base. But machines were everywhere, investigating and repairing, and the human chatter was busy and endless, jabbering about subjects and names and places and times that made no sense at all.

  The walker retreated to where the stern and bow met, and for years it moved along that fresh line. But starships were approaching. Fierce little rockets and u
rgent voices matched velocities with the Great Ship. Dozens of streakships fell toward the hull and vanished without trace. The walker moved closer to the landing field, and then it hid for a year before moving a little farther and a little farther again. Eventually it saw two enormous doors pull wide, revealing a gaping hole cut deep into the perfect hull. The next invaders landed inside the hole. The walker had never seen a spaceport, never imagined such a thing was necessary or even possible. Once again, the Great Ship was far more than it pretended to be. Considering how many passengers might be tucked inside each little ship, it was easy to understand why the hull had grown crowded. The human animals were falling from the sky, coming here for the honor of living inside their bubble cities on the hull of this lost, unknowable relic.

  Over the years, in slow patient stages, the walker crept to the edge of the spaceport. Then the door pulled wide and with a single glance, its foolishness was revealed: The Great Ship was more than its armored hull. What the entity had assumed to be hyperfiber to the core was otherwise. The port was a vast column of air and light and warm wet bodies moving by every means and for no discernible purpose. This was animal motion, swift and busy and devoid of any clear purpose. Humans were just one species among a multitude, and the Ship beneath the hull was pierced with tunnels and doorways and hatches and diamond-windows, and that was just what the briefest glance provided before it flattened out and slowly, cautiously crept away.

  The Ship was hollow.

  And judging by the evidence, it was inhabited by millions and maybe billions of organic entities.

  The unwanted revelations left it shaken. Years were required to sneak away from the port. Unseen, it returned to the bow and the beautiful sky, accepting the dangers for the illusion of solitude. But the ancient craters were being swiftly erased now. The Ship’s lasers were pummeling any cometary debris that dared come close, and the repair crews were swift and efficient. The pitted, cracked terrain was vanishing beneath smooth perfection. The new hyperfiber proved fresh and strong, affording few hiding places even for a wanderer who could hide nearly anywhere. By necessity, every motion was studied before it was made. But even then, a nearby robot might notice a presence and maybe EM hands would reach out, trying to touch what couldn’t be seen; and in terror, the walker stopped living and stopped thinking, hiding away inside itself as it pretended to be nothing but another scab of hyperfiber lost among billions of patches.

  A freshly made crater waited upon its line, too small to bring humans today but large enough to let a survivor hide inside the wounded hull. A brief sharp ridge stood in the way—the relic of chaotic, billion-degree plasmas. After five days of careful study, the walker slowly crossed the ridge. Humans never came alone to these places, and there was no trace of machines. But as it stood on the ridgeline, urgency took hold. Something was wrong and what was wrong felt close. The walker began to slowly lower itself, trying to vanish. But then a strong voice said, “There you are.”

  It hunkered down quickly.

  With amusement, someone said, “I see you.”

  The mysterious voice from before had been quieter than this. It was always a whisper and far less comprehensible. Perhaps the young crater helped shape its words, its sharp refrozen lip lending strength and focus.

  In myriad ways, the walker began melting into the knife-like ridge.

  Yet the voice only grew louder—a radio squawk wrapped around the human language. With some pleasure, it said, “You cannot hide from me.”

  “Leave me be,” the walker answered.

  “But you’re the one disturbing me, stranger.”

  “And I have told you,” the walker insisted. “Before, I told you that I wish to be alone. I must be alone. Don’t pester me with your noise.”

  “Oh,” the voice replied. “You believe we’ve met. Don’t you?”

  Curiosity joined the fear. A new eye lifted a little ways, scanning the closest few meters.

  “You’ve made a mistake,” the voice continued. “I don’t know whose song you’ve been hearing, but I’m rather certain that it wasn’t mine.”

  “Who are you?” the walker asked.

  “My name is Wune.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Find the blue-white star on the horizon,” it said.

  “Are you that star?”

  “No, no.” Wune could do nothing but laugh for a few moments. “Look below it. Do you see me?”

  Except for a few crevices and delicate wrinkles, the crater floor was flat. Standing at the far end was a tiny figure clad in hyperfiber. It was shaped like a female. One arm lifted high. What might have been a hand waved slowly, the gesture purely human.

  “My name is Wune,” the stranger repeated.

  “Are you human?”

  “I’m a Remora,” said Wune. “And what exactly are you, my friend? I don’t seem to recognize your nature.”

  “My nature is a mystery,” it agreed.

  “Do you have a name?”

  “I am,” it began. Then it hesitated, considering this wholly original question. And with sudden conviction, it said, “Alone.” It rose up from the ridge, proclaiming, “My name is Alone.”

  4

  “Come closer, Alone.”

  It did nothing.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Wune promised, the arm beckoning again. “We should study each at a neighborly distance. Don’t you agree?”

  “We are close enough,” the walker warned, nearly two kilometers of vacuum and blasted hyperfiber separating them.

  The Remora considered his response. Then with an amiably tone, she agreed, “This is better than being invisible to one another, I’ll grant you that.”

  For a long while, neither spoke.

  Then Wune asked, “How good are those eyes? What do you see of me?”

  Alone stared only at the stranger, each new eye focused on the lifesuit made of hyperfiber and the thick diamond faceplate and what lay beyond. Alone had studied enough humans to understand their construction, their traditions, but what was human about this face was misplaced. The eyes were beneath the mouth and tilted on their sides. The creature’s flesh was slick and cold in appearance, and it was a vivid warm purple, while the long hair on the scalp was white with a hint of blue, rather like the brightest stars. The white hair was lifting and falling, twirling and then pulling straight, as if an invisible hand were playing with it.

  “I don’t know your species,” Alone confessed.

  “But I think you do,” Wune corrected. “I’m a human animal and a Remora too.”

  “You are different from the others.”

  “What others?” she inquired.

  “The few I have seen.”

  “You spied on us while we were working the monster crater. Didn’t you?” The mouth smiled, exposing matching rows of perfect human teeth. “Oh yes, you were noticed. I know you climbed inside that busted bladder before walking away again.”

  “You saw me?”

  “Not then, but later,” she explained. “A security AI was riding the bladder. It was set at minimal power, barely alive, which probably kept you from noticing it. We didn’t learn about you until weeks later, when we stripped the wreck for salvage and the AI woke up.”

  Shame took hold. How could it have been so careless?

  “I know five other occasions when you were noticed,” Wune continued. “There are probably other incidents. I try to hear everything, but that’s never quite possible. Is it?” Then she described each sighting, identifying the place and time when these moments of incompetence occurred.

  “I wasn’t aware that I was seen,” it stated.

  Ignorance made its failures feel even worse.

  “You were barely seen,” Wune corrected. “A ghost, a phantom. Not real enough to be taken seriously.”

  “You mentioned a spaceport,” it said.

  “I did.”

  “Where is this port?”

  Wune pointed with authority, offering a precise distance.

&n
bsp; “I don’t remember being there,” Alone admitted.

  “Maybe we made a mistake,” she allowed.

  “But I did visit another port.” With care, it sifted through its memories. “I might have difficulties with memory.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because I know so little about myself,” confessed the walker.

  “Well, that is sad,” Wune said. “I’m sorry for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Life is the past,” she stated. “The present moment is too narrow to slice, and besides, it will be lost with the next instant. And the future is nothing but empty conjecture. Where you have been is what matters. What you have done is what counts for and against you on the tallies.”

  The walker concentrated on those unexpected words.

  “I have a telescope with me,” Wune said. “I used it when I first saw you. But I want to be polite. If you don’t mind, may I study you now?”

  “If you wish,” it said uneasily.

  The Remora warned, “This might take some time, friend.” Then with both gloved hands, she held a long tube to her face.

  Alone waited.

  An hour later, Wune asked, “Are you a machine?”

  “Perhaps I am.”

  “Or do you carry an organic component inside that body?”

  “Each answer is possible, I think.”

  Wune lowered the telescope. “I am a little of both,” she allowed. “I like to believe that I’m more organic than mechanical, but the two facets happily live inside me.”

  Alone said nothing.

  The Remora laughed softly, admitting, “This is fun.”

  Was it?

  To her new friend, she explained, “Thousands of years ago, humans learned how to never grow old. There are no diseases, and there’s no easy way to kill us.” The hands were encased in hyperfiber gloves. One of those fingers tapped hard against her diamond faceplate. “My mind? It’s a bioceramic machine, which makes it tough and quick to heal and full of redundancies. My memories are woven inside the artificial neurons, safe as can be. Whenever I want, I can remember yesterday. Or I can pull my head back five centuries and one yesterday. My life is an enormous, deeply personal epic that I am free to enjoy whenever I wish.”