by Robert Reed
Listen deeply, and what is not heard?
And now listen to closer places—as close as can be:
Standing in a bright avenue, on the most ordinary day, one mouth says nothing while the mind behind it seems drained of thought. The entity appears ordinary, yet it is impenetrable, and worse still, the shape of its silence resembles the mystery at work in the galaxy’s heart.
The Man With the Golden Balloon
1
Quee Lee learned about the Vermiculate from an unlikely source—a painfully respectable gentleman who never took pleasure from adventuring or the unexpected. But their paths happened to cross during a feast given by mutual friends, and after the customary pleasantries, he gently pulled the ancient woman aside, remarking, “I have some news that might be of interest to you.”
“Well, I have interest to spare,” she said.
Then with a precise, mildly perturbed voice, he explained how one tiny portion of the Great Ship had never been adequately mapped.
“How can that be?” Quee Lee asked skeptically. “The captains’ first priority was to locate every shipboard cavern and dead-end tunnel. Even the tiniest crevice wears some unique name.”
“Oh, the captains were thorough,” the man admitted, never one to openly doubt authority. “But the Ship has the mass and volume of Uranus, with engines bigger than moons and fuel tanks that can swallow oceans whole.”
Yes, mapping the enigmatic body was a challenge. But the early captains were clever, stubborn souls. Their survey began with several million robots—small, elegantly designed machines bristling with sensors and curious limbs. Scrambling through the Ship’s interior, the robots memorized every empty volume, and whenever a passageway split in two, the robots paused, feasting on the local rock and metal while building copies of their obsessive selves. As prolific as carpenter ants or harum-scarum fleas, those early scouts soon numbered in the trillions, and ruled by simple unyielding instructions, they moved ever deeper inside the Ship, eventually scurrying down every hole, fashioning a precise three-dimensional model of the Ship’s vacant interior.
But the method had limitations. Doorless bubbles and pockets and finger-wide seams lay out of reach; more than a few long caverns were sealed beneath kilometers of iron and hyperfiber. Yet with sonic probes and neutrino knives, the Ship’s engineers made even those buried places visible. The only unmapped region was the Ship’s distant core. The Master Captain was being honest when she stood on the bridge, proclaiming that her fabulous machine had been mapped in full; and its crew and countless passengers had little reason but believe every promise that this voyage would remain routine—a blissful journey that would eventually circumnavigate the bright heart of the Milky Way.
Quee Lee explained all of this, and her companion bristled.
“I understand how the Ship was mapped,” he said. “What I’m telling you is that despite everyone’s best efforts, a few empty spaces are lurking out there.”
“And how do we know this?”
“Because the Master Captain owns a team of AI savants—brilliant machines designed to do nothing but ponder the Ship and its mysteries. One of those AIs recently made a fresh analysis of old data, and one glaring gap was discovered. One blank spot on the captains’ map and nobody understands how this could have happened.”
“And when did we learn this?”
“But we haven’t learned anything,” he countered, his voice breaking at the edges. “This is a very grave, very important business. Only the highest ranking captains know about the flaw.”
“And you,” she pointed out.
“Well, yes, I know portions of the story. But I can’t tell how or why, and please don’t ask me.”
“And why are you telling me?”
“Because it occurred to me,” he said, producing a hopeful smile. “You of all people would appreciate hearing this news.”
Give a rich secret to the blandest soul, and he will turn into a fountain of knowledge. And Quee Lee was a charming presence as well as a very desirable audience: A wealthy woman from the Old Earth and one of a handful of humans onboard the Ship who could remember that precious moment when their species turned a sensitive ear to the sky, hearing intelligent sounds raining down from the stars. In that sense, she was a remarkable and very rare creature—a lady of genuine fame inside the human community. She was also beautiful and poised, socially gifted and universally liked. Given this kind of opportunity, any healthy, insecure heterosexual male would work hard to impress Quee Lee.
“Our captains are worried,” her confidant said. “The Master Captain took the trouble of waking one of the old surveying robots and putting it down a promising hole. And do you know what happened?”
“You’re going to tell me, I hope.”
“The robot lost its way.” The man shivered, bothered by this turn of events. “The machine fumbled around in the darkness, and then with nothing to say for itself, it climbed back out of the hole again.”
“Fascinating,” she said.
“I knew you would enjoy this,” he whispered, offering a smile and quick wink. After millennia of traveling together, he had finally managed to engage the interest of this beautiful creature.
“Perri will want to hear this story,” she mentioned.
“But I wish you wouldn’t mention it,” the man said. Then a worse possibility occurred to him. “I understood your husband is traveling now. He isn’t here with us, is he?”
“Oh, but he is.” For the last several weeks, Perri had been riding a saddle strapped to the back of a squid-like alien called the Gi-Gee, enjoying wild swims in a frigid river of ammonium hydrate. But by chance, he had just now slipped into the party. Of course her husband would want to learn of this news. A thousand souls were scattered across the room, human and otherwise. Most of the celebrants were dressed in gaudy, look-at-me costumes—which was only proper, since these were among the wealthiest, most powerful individuals to be found in the galaxy. But looking past the towering egos, Quee Lee waved at the only human male dressed in plain, practical clothes.
“I don’t want this to be known,” the man said. “Not outside our little circle, please.”
The tone was the message: Perri was neither wealthy nor important, which made him unacceptable.
But Quee Lee laughed off the insult as well as the earnest pleas for silence. “Oh, I’m sure my husband’s already heard about the Vermiculate,” she said. “Perri knows the Ship as well as any captain does, and he knows everyone onboard who matters too.” Then she winked, adding sweetly, “And he knows you, of course.”
“Of course.”
Yet for some reason Perri wasn’t familiar with this rumor. He listened intently as Quee Lee related the mystery, and yes, he was familiar with the region called the Vermiculate. It was an intricate nest of dry caves, very few entrances leading to a million dead ends. But he never knew that some portion of those caverns had escaped mapping.
The other man rocked nervously side to side.
“Tell it again,” Perri demanded, tugging at the fellow’s elbow. “From the beginning, everything you know.”
But there weren’t many new details to share.
“I think I see what’s happening,” Perri said. “This is just an old rumor reborn. The first two passengers to come onboard the Great Ship started this story. Over drinks or in somebody’s bed, they convinced themselves there had to be secret places and unmapped corners. It helped heighten the sense of adventure, don’t you see? And every century or two, without fail, that same old legend puts on a new costume and takes its walk in public.”
“But this is no rumor,” the man said. “And I don’t approve of legends. What I told you is the truth, I swear it.”
“Yet you won’t name your source,” Perri pointed out.
“I cannot,” the man said. “Frankly, I wish I hadn’t said this much.”
Unlike all of the well-moneyed souls in the room, Perri wore a boyish face and a pretty, almost juvenile smile. W
hen it served his needs, he played the role of a smart child surrounded by very foolish adults. “It scares the hell out of you, doesn’t it, sir? You hear about this puzzle, and you’re the kind of creature who won’t fall asleep unless every puzzle is solved, every question mark erased.”
“And what is wrong with that?” asked the rumor’s source.
“What’s right about it?” Perri asked.
Quee Lee had expected that response, and when it came, she laughed softly.
The gentleman bristled, looking at her. “My dear, I thought you would be interested in this matter. But if you’re going to tease me—“
“I didn’t mean that,” she began.
But the man had his excuse to turn and march away. No doubt he would avoid Quee Lee for the rest the day, and if genuinely angry, she wouldn’t see him for the next fifty years.
“I shouldn’t have laughed,” Quee Lee admitted.
“And he shouldn’t forgive you,” said Perri. “But he will.”
True enough. Fifty years of chilled silence was nothing among immortals. All but the most malicious slights were eventually pardoned, or at least discarded as memories not worth carrying any farther. “It’s too bad that the story isn’t true,” she said. “I wish there was an unmapped cave hiding out there.”
“Oh, but there is,” said Perri.
Quee Lee worked through the possibilities. “You lied to me,” she complained. “You’d already heard about the Vermiculate.”
“I didn’t, and I haven’t.”
“Then how can you say—?”
“Easily,” he interrupted. “Your friend might be a wonderful soul. He might be charitable and sweet—”
“Hardly.”
“But the man has never once shown me the barest trace of imagination. I seriously doubt that he could dream up such a tale, and I know he wouldn’t repeat some wild fable, unless it came from a reasonable, responsible source.”
“Such as?”
“One of the captains,” said Perri.
“But why would an officer take any passenger into his or her confidence?” She hesitated, and laughed. “I suppose our friend is rather wealthy.”
“Wealthier even than you,” Perri agreed.
“And if he happened to be sleeping with a captain…”
“That’s my cynical guess.”
Nothing about her husband’s mind was unknown. “You already know which captain it is. Don’t you?”
“I have a robust notion,” he said.
“Tell”
“Not here.” Stroking her arm with a fond hand, he said, “My candidate has rank and connections, and she’s desperately fond of money. And if you mix those qualifications with the fact that she, like that prickly man sulking over there, doesn’t appreciate mysteries…”
“Is the Vermiculate unmapped?” she asked.
“If any place is.” With long fingers, he drew elaborate shapes in the air between them. “Join all of those empty caves together and straightened them out, and you’ll have a single tunnel long enough to reach from your Earth to Neptune and partway home again. So yes, it’s easy to imagine that some AI expert could massage the old data, and one corner here and one little room there might have escaped notice and naming. And maybe after eighty thousand years of sleep, one of the original survey robots gets awakened and shoved down a hole, but because of its age, it malfunctions, which makes these events far more mysterious than they actually are.”
On her own, Quee Lee had narrowed the list of suspect captains to three, perhaps four. With a quiet, conspiratorial voice, she asked, “Who’s going to make our discreet inquires? You or me?”
“Neither of us,” Perri said.
“Then you’re not my husband,” she teased. “The man I married would want to finish the mapping himself.”
Perri shrugged and grinned. “We can make our own good guesses. Besides, if we get ourselves noticed, what began as a tiny anomaly mentioned on a pillow becomes much more: An area of potential embarrassment to the godly rulers of the Great Ship. Then our nameless captain will personally march into that empty corner, and keep me from having my little bit of fun.”
“And me too,” said Quee Lee.
“Or quite a lot of fun,” Perri added, wrapping an arm around his wife’s waist. “If you’re in the mood for a little darkness, that is.”
2
Yet nothing was simple about this simple-sounding quest. Finding holes inside the existing maps required months of detailed analysis by several experts paid well for their secrecy as well as their rare skills. Meanwhile, half a dozen of Perri’s best friends heard about his newest interest, and by turning in past favors earned slots on the expedition roster. Then Quee Lee decided to invite two lady-friends who had been pressing for centuries to join her on a “safe adventure”, which was what this would be. The Vermiculate might be imperfectly known, but there was no reason to expect danger. The dry caves were filled with the standard minimal atmosphere—nitrogen and oxygen and nothing else. There were no artificial suns or lights, and the only heat was thermal leakage from the nearby habitats and reactors. Even if the worst happened—if everyone lost their way and their supplies were exhausted—the result would be a bothersome thirst and gradual starvation. Bioceramic minds would sever all connections with their failing bodies, and when no choice was left, ten humans would sit down in the darkness and quietly turn into mummies, waiting for their absence to be noted and a rescue mission to track them down, waking them up and then teasing them endlessly.
But Perri didn’t approve of losing his way. Meticulously recording their position on the new, modestly improved map, he earned gentle ribbing and then not-so-gentle ribbing from the others. Of course the Vermiculate was far too enormous to explore, even a thousand years. But their flex-skin car took them to areas of interest, and before stepping away from each base camp, he made his team memorize the local tunnels and chambers. Everyone had to stay with at least one companion, he insisted. He begged for the others to carry several kinds of torches as well as locator tools, noisemakers and laser flares. But eighteen days of that kind of mothering caused one of Quee Lee’s friends to break every rule. She picked a random passageway and ran for parts unknown, at least to her. Carrying nothing but one small torch and a half-filled water bottle, she invested ten hours into solitary adventuring, and then discovered that she had no worthwhile ideas where she was in the universe.
Perri and Quee Lee found the explorer sitting in a dead-end chamber, shivering inside her heated clothes—shivering out of anxiety and the first hunger experienced in ages. But it was a lesson that took, and from that moment on, everyone’s wandering was done with at least the minimal precautions.
Boredom was what began defeating the explorers.
The Vermiculate’s walls were stone buttressed with low-grade hyperfiber. No human eye had ever seen these tunnels, but the novelty was minimal. Some places were beautiful in their shape and proportions, but it was an accidental beauty. The Ship’s builders might have had a purpose for each twist and turn, every sudden room and the little tubes that gave access to the next portion of the maze. But living eyes found nothing strange or interesting, and after two months of wandering, the novice adventurers were losing their interest.
One by one, the expedition shrank.
First to leave was the woman who hadn’t gotten lost. Then Perri’s friends complained about these dreary circumstances, each demanding a ride to the nearest exit point. The only ones left were identical twin brothers and that dear old friend of Quee Lee who had gotten lost and scared, and who since then, to the surprise of everyone, had discovered a genuine fondness for spelunking.
Or maybe it was the brothers who held her interest. One night, when the camp lights were dropping down to a nightly glow, Quee Lee spotted the twins slipping into her friend’s little shelter—entering her home from opposite ends, and neither appearing again until morning.
Another month of roving brought few highlights. Half a doz
en tunnels showed evidence of foot-traffic over the last few thousand years. The desiccated slime trail of a Snail-As-God was a modest surprise. Inside one cave was the broken scale from a harum-scarum shin, and a few meters farther along, a liter of petrified blood left behind by a human male. And then came that momentous afternoon when they discovered a graveyard of surveying robots—ten thousand machines that had pulled themselves into neat, officious piles before dropping into an eternal diagnostic sleep.
Two days later, Perri brought his team to the bottom of a deep, deep chimney. Mathematical wizards had labeled that location as “mildly interesting”. The Vermiculate displayed patterns, sometimes predictable and occasionally repeatable, and according to sophisticated calculations, that very narrow hole should lead to a large “somewhere else”. But the unknown refused to expose itself with a glance. Two little tunnels waited at the bottom of the chimney, yet every sonic pulse and cursory examination showed that they were long and exceptionally ordinary repositories of the same-old-shit.
The five humans broke into two groups.
Perri and Quee Lee slipped into the shorter tunnel. As always, they brought tracking equipment as well as the sniffers constantly searching for organic traces left by past visitors, and they carried heated clothes and survival rations and a variety of lights to offer feeble glows or sun-blazing fires. But the most effective sensor came in pairs, and it was the bluish-yellow eyes that noticed the sudden hole in the floor.
“Stop,” said Perri.
Quee Lee paused, one gloved hand dropping, fingertips reaching to within a hair’s width of the emptiness.
“Look,” he advised.
“I see it,” she said. But she didn’t know what she saw. After days and weeks of staring at structural hyperfiber, she recognized that here was something different. The area surrounding the hole was peculiar. Holding a variable beam to the floor, she slipped through a series of settings. Hyperfiber was the strongest baryonic substance known—the bones of the Ship and the basis of every starfaring civilization—yet she had never seen light flickering against hyperfiber quite like this. It was as if the floor could feel their weight, and the photons were betraying the floor’s tiny vibrations.