by Alex Oliver
"No worries," she said again. "We're all very informal on the Raggy. Lots of time together, nothing to do but map dust. You'll find out."
The lift decelerated to a halt and the doors opened on the hollow at the center of the moon. A little over five hundred years ago, the discovery of this huge internal hanger in the center of the barren planet had rocked the human conception of the galaxy. Nothing but microbes had been found before, and space exploration had barely reached the levels of colonization of Mars. After centuries of fighting, and the exhausted peace that had followed, humanity had turned their attention first to cleaning up their own planet and stabilizing their economies before beginning once more to explore their solar system.
In those days, Terra's space fleet had been equipped with massive fossil fuel-based rockets and one or two prototype tachyon engines. It took months to arrive at Mars. Getting out of the solar system had been a pipe dream if you weren't a robot or prepared to take a mad gamble with cryogenic freezing.
And then Derdre McGowan, moon-walking across the surface of the crater Serenity, stepped on an area of strange dark rock, which fell away beneath her. She fell, and didn't stop falling for nearly an hour, spooling out her emergency cable as she went.
When she finally reached solid ground once more, it was in a network of chambers that had obviously been carved by no human hand. She lit her torch and stumbled, astonished, out into an abandoned hangar full of tiny craft shaped like needles—barely large enough to take a pilot and two passengers. On the far wall from these racked craft, the chamber wall was pierced by fifteen openings, each with a decorative frieze carved around a hole in reality. The small spaceships were just the size to fit through the openings.
She had found a hub of a network of wormholes left behind by a vanished ancient civilization. From that day, humanity had gleefully retro-engineered the ships and were now busily at work studying the gates with limited success.
Out there in the galaxy, the hubs connected to other gates, all with livable systems around them. The colonization of outer space had gone from a prospect likely to take the next half-millennium to something that could happen tomorrow. And it had. The moment a country could raise a first settlement team an available world had been assigned. Yas's own world had been among the first, settled from the Reservations of the United States, and proudly full of inhabitants delighted to be able to return to their people's traditional ways of life in a new setting.
Yas had come through the moon's gate hub when he first arrived at the academy, but it still provoked awe. The ceiling was so high it was invisible. A bleak, not-quite-light came from the many gates, where not-reality was interpreted by the human eye as a kind of visible radiation. The human ability to perceive a thing that didn't occupy space-time was still a source of philosophical speculation by the Ocuilin members of the NX alliance, but to Yas the wormholes looked like a gray twilight, like the horizon just before dawn.
The moon rock out of which the chamber had been drilled was steely-white, and the needle-ships were silver to the point of near-invisibility. The effect was of walking into a silvery-white fog, in which the personnel, in their blue uniforms, stood out with a sense of unreality, as though they were over-saturated, over-exposed, hyper-real and not-quite believable because of it.
Oddly, Keva looked fitting in that unworldly radiance. Her exoskeleton matched the alien art incised into the walls and the sense that a scaffolding lay behind even the nature of reality.
Yas must have been standing like a rube, gaping, because Keva nudged him forward out of the elevator and onto the smooth stone floor, where a technician saluted her and assigned them a racked ship. On the great working floor of the cavern, needle-ships were emerging from the walls in a choreographed dance, settling, disgorging their passengers and then being moved into storage, while others were being moved out of storage and prepped for departure. The technician un-racked their ship and had it lowered by crane to the floor, where Yas and Keva climbed in.
Yas had flown a dozen of these in simulation over the course of his training, and noted smugly how routine the check in seemed, but when the engines clicked on with the smoothness of oil—their mechanism still not fully understood—a frisson of excitement ran through him. Say what you liked about the Raggy being the laughingstock of the alliance, he was still gating out to the last gate on the edge of the galaxy. He was going to see things no one had ever seen before.
Keva nudged the ship into hover, and directed it to one of the wormholes. Without any feeling of acceleration, it slid forward, its nose passing into the wall, becoming unreal. The wave of dissolution slid over Yas, and he felt it like pins and needles in every molecule of his body.
It should last no time at all, but subjectively about two seconds. When he passed the count of fifty, he began to worry.
They should be back in reality at the gate at the other end by now.
He opened his eyes-or at least he had the intention of opening his eyes, but he realized that he didn't know where his eyes were. He tried to reach up to touch them, but discovered that he couldn't feel his hands. No, he didn't have hands. His arms were missing. Once more he tried to tear his eyes open and to stop seeing this watery silvery ghost light in which nothing moved nor ever would. But he didn't have eyes. He didn't have a he. He was— There was—
And then everything rushed back in a sensory flood so overwhelming that he almost blacked out, and he discovered the gate had spat him and his ship straight back onto the floor of the moon's hub.
Keva swore. The inflammation on her cheek had turned gray, or perhaps that was because all the blood in her face seemed to have drained. She unclipped from the jury-rigged human safety harness and pushed to open the hatch. Climbing out, she lifted Yas after her by the collar, effortlessly, and swung him to his feet. "Stay here."
"What... what just happened?"
"That's what I'm going to find out."
Before he could get his wits about him to question that, she had strode off to join the knot of technicians surrounding the central computer that administered the gate network's connections, leaving him standing by the steaming cold ship forgotten yet again.
"I thought that wasn't possible," he said, catching the pseudopod of an Ocuilin cadet who was sliding past him, accompanied by its flotilla of remoras. The cadet's vocal implant made a wheezing noise as it half flowed over his hand. "Has the gate system ever malfunctioned like this before?"
"I don't think so," the Ocuilin’s flat, manufactured voice answered. It’s skin flashed green and yellow in nervous excitement. "But I'm new. Please don't interfere. The experts need to work."
Yas had heard that too many times in the last day. He rolled his eyes and considered what he could do while this crisis too was dealt with without him. He had always thought that once he was no longer a cadet, he would be more integral to the workings of the Alliance, but obviously that hadn't started yet.
An unoccupied comms screen caught his eye. This was a public device for civilians who were traveling on the gate network to call their families and friends, to arrange real-space transport to wherever they were going. Fed into the gate network, even electronic messages were able to move faster than light.
It was still showing a connected light. They hadn't said he couldn't contact...
He opened the messages screen and fed in his parents' code. His mother picked the call up instantly, though there was a moment when he scarcely recognized her. She looked so old. So haggard. Her eyes were swollen and red, and he could hear her breath shaking.
"They told you," he sobbed, grief coming out of nowhere at the sight of her and overwhelming him. She had been crying and it gave him permission to cry too.
"Yas! Yas, sweetie." His mom breathed. Across lightyears, they wept together, abject but somehow comforting. "I'm so glad you're okay."
"I don't know what's going on, Mom," he croaked. "They won't let me do anything. They say it's not my job and I'm not good enough, but I just..."
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br /> "Ssh!" she soothed, giving him a watery smile. "They're doing all they can. I trust them. And you... you should go on with your own life. Dezba wouldn't want you to make any big decisions when nobody knows what to do yet. Have you got your ship? Are you going to go on the great adventures you planned?"
"Maybe I should come home," Yas said, thinking about her and Dad dealing with this alone. "I could resign and come home."
"No, no—"
"But mom. I'm on the Ragnarok. I'm going aboard today, striking out from the edge of the galaxy and mapping what's there, outside the gates. It'll be five years there, and five years back on tachyon drive. Ten years, mom. I can't... I can't leave you to deal with all of this alone for all that time."
His mom clasped her hands over her mouth and sank into her seat. In the silence that followed, he contemplated what would follow a resignation at this point. Reprimand, a fine. Surely not jail; the NXA was not an unreasonable organization. But she was right that he had dreamed of this all his life--well, perhaps not the Raggy in particular, but his own ship, his commission. The beginnings of a life of freedom in the void, far away from gravity wells, colonies and the expectations of marriage and children that came with them. For the first time he felt a stirring of desire for his punishment of a posting.
"You will be able to send us packages of data, won't you? And we will keep you updated on everything." His mom had sounded uncertain when she began, but her tone firmed up as the sentence continued. "I don't want you to give up on your dreams. Besides, you know your father and I are not alone in anything. I have the commissioners, we have all the tribe--"
"Is there anything you can do to make them work harder? To force them to let me help them look for her? I— I would rather be doing something."
"Sweetie," she shook her head. "I'm the director of forestry. I can threaten them with acorns. No," she gave a watery smile. "To tell the truth, I would be happier if you were safely on a long voyage away from the gates where nothing can touch you. I don't want whatever happened to Dezba happening to you."
He hadn't thought of that. What if it spread? What if it wasn't an isolated incident but an early precursor to a galaxy-wide phenomenon? Being outside the galaxy might be the safest place right now. In which case he absolutely didn't want to leave his family to suffer it alone.
"I don't want it happening to you!"
“I know that,” she smiled. “But it is one of the privileges of parents to die without having seen harm come to their children. The universe has set it up that I am more expendable than you, and you will just have to come to terms with—”
The transmission cut off, as though the galaxy’s gate and comms network had a miserable sense of irony. Yas tried re-initiating the call, but got a “That station is down,” message.
“No!” he yelled, rising to his feet and hitting the side of the console with his fist in frustration. “Piece of shit!”
Looking up, he found the huddle of people around the gate tech station staring at him. Keva shoved her tattered sleeves as far up her forearms as they would go and strode toward him, looking determined.
“We’re up,” she said, reaching him in great powered strides. “Come on. They’re pretty sure it’s working again.”
“The comms to Nahasdzáán just karked on me,” Yas protested, staying where he was. “What if something’s happening there too? That’s the rest of my family. You can’t expect me—”
Keva grabbed him around the wrist. By the feel of her hand, there was metal embedded along her bones. It was like being grabbed by an animated handcuff. He couldn’t twist out of her grip even though he tugged.
“I expect you to follow your orders, squirt.” She gave him a little shake, glaring. “Listen, I know we’re not sticklers for proper behavior, but a little respect would be nice.”
“My mom!” Yas protested, finding himself dragged across the cavern exactly like a reluctant schoolboy. The Commandant would be mad, but right now he didn’t care. “I can’t just go and leave—”
“Do I have to shove you through the hatch?”
She had brought him to their needle-ship, which lay humming in readiness in front of the gate to the end of the world. Then she let go and forced him to make the choice for himself. He could go to his posting, believing that he worked for a competent organization that was already doing the best it could for his family, or he could go rogue and attempt to get home, with no money of his own, no transport and no clue as to what to do when he got there.
A sense of futility and crushing despair bent his back. He was only the newest of new recruits. What could he do?
He climbed up to the ship’s hatch and slid in, settling into his seat like a defeat. The engines throbbed and Keva lit her up and threaded her through the gate.
CHAPTER FOUR
The infamous Captain Harcrow
This time, the sensation of pins and needles and the inability of his mind to grasp anything at all lasted only long enough for him to be aware of it, and then it was gone. They emerged from that strange eye-blink of non-space into a far rougher cavern than the one they had left.
For some reason, the gate-builders had insisted on making their network of gates inside barren worlds. This one—so Keva told him—was an asteroid in orbit around a gas giant. They would need to don spacesuits to go up onto the surface where the Ragnarok would pick them up.
Aside from themselves, the cavern was empty. Automated cranes lifted the needle and positioned it on the second cradle - the first cradle was already occupied by a ship that had been allowed to be covered in rust. Probably, when they returned from their ten years mission, this one too would greet them blushed over with rust. So many things might have happened by then.
The abandoned outpost on the edge of everything seemed fitting for Yas's mood. The gate builders - where were they now? Time and decay got everyone in the end, and perhaps he was right to feel comforted at the thought that he could do nothing about it.
"Suit up," Keva opened one of the rock crystal compartments at the side of the cavern and offered him a human-made suit. "Then let me check the seals. It should be good--I only left it here two days ago, but I don't like to assume."
Yas clambered into the elastic bodysuit and strapped on all the rigid pieces with the ease of someone who has drilled in it. A faint sense of excitement pierced his despair. This was on the ass-end of everywhere, but it was for real. No more just training, now he was doing.
He stood patiently while Keva checked his suit's integrity, sealing the helmet and breathing in the stink of recycled air. Then he did the same for her. Her suit was heavily modified to take her bulk.
A quick look around showed him nothing more extraordinary than a hollowed out asteroid with a rip in reality along one wall and a door in the other the size of a barn door. In other gate-hubs, humans had modified the airlocks to their own preference, but this place didn’t seem to have been touched since it was discovered, and the way out was built for different legs from theirs. They had to take great leaps up the long stairs, and even with the micro-gravity the climb to the surface took half an hour.
Outside, the staircase terminated in a lintel much like one of the standing stones of Stonehenge, but larger. The surface of the asteroid curved away from them visibly on every side, dark and jagged with veins of some kind of ice glittering in the light of a distant blue sun. A sharp streak of light to the east marked the domes of the observatory that had been built here to study the intergalactic void.
"There she is," Keva however pointed straight up. Yas looked and saw a ship that must have been elegant a half century ago. It was roughly streamlined, but with a pile of observation domes on one side, and a pair of stubby wings. A scoop extended from it’s nose. It’s sides, streaked with micrometeorite dust, were pockmarked by sensors and the round mouths of two plasma cannons.
"Where's the boat?" Yas asked, because there was no sign of a transport to get them off the surface. "Are we supposed to jump?"
&n
bsp; Keva snorted. "Just let them get a teleport lock and you'll see. Stand still."
A moment later and another weird sensation, like being painlessly fed into a mincer, and the galaxy dissolved from around him. He found himself inside a small ship's cabin, where the quadrilateral plates of a teleporter ringed the walls. There was an odd sensation around both his chest and his groin, and he stripped off his suit with no small amount of terror.
"Oh, shit, sorry."
Yas looked up with an open mouth from the discovery of his own breasts and found a dark young man at the teleporter controls. The young man had rich brown skin and clear hazel eyes, his curly hair shorn short for convenience under a helmet. He wore the undershirt of his uniform with cargo pants and a bandana around his throat, but his name-badge—sewn on his shoulder sleeve—read First Lieutenant Vasto Mari. This was the XO of the ship.
Yas squirmed uncomfortably, registering everything that was different and just plain wrong about his body. "What the hell?" he said. "You sex-changed me? What the hell? Why?"
"Hey," said Mari with a casual shrug. "I forgot I had it set up for me. No worries, let me beam you to your cabin, and it'll fix you on the way."
He was as good as he claimed. Almost before he'd reached the end of the sentence, Yas found himself re-materialized in the center of a small room with a crash couch, a vacuum toilet and a viewscreen. Luxury.
He patted himself down, just to make sure everything was back where it was meant to be, dropped his kit bag and took his shirt off to be sure he still looked as he thought he should.
It was while he had dropped his trousers and was reaching for the waistband of his shorts to make sure of what was in there that the door opened and Mari strode in.
"Dude," he said, "Don't stress. I've done it a thousand times—sometimes three times a day—and never anything out of place. Just embrace it. You might find out something about yourself, yes?"
"Um," Yas said, waking up enough to realize that this was a deliberate choice rather than an accident. "Yes sir. Sorry. Um… what do I call you, sir?"