On a few occasions he had floated up to some of the ships and touched their skins, and even through the thickness of the gloves on the millennium-old suit he had felt the roughened surface, whorled and raised and encrusted beneath. He had looked closely, then more closely still, using the suit's lights and the magnification on the visor-screen to peer into the gaudy display in front of him, and found himself becoming lost within concentric layers of complexity and design. Finally the suit was using electrons to scan the surface and imposing false colours on the surfaces displayed and still the complexity went on, down and down to the atomic level. He had pulled back out through the layers and levels of motifs, figures, mandalas and fronds, his head buzzing with the extravagant, numbing complexity of it all.
Gestra Ishmethit remembered seeing screen-shots of warships; they had been whatever colour they wanted to be — usually perfectly black or perfectly reflecting when they were not hidden by a hologram of the view straight through them — but he could not recall ever having seen such odd designs upon them. He had consulted the Mind's archives. Sure enough, the ships had been ordinary, plain-hulled craft when they had flown here. He asked the Mind why the ships had become decorated so, writing to it on the display of his terminal as he always did when he wanted to communicate: Why ships tattooed look?
The Mind had replied: Think of it as a form of armour, Gestra.
And that was all he could get out of it.
He decided he would have to be content to remain puzzled.
The little fire sent quivering veins of dim light into the hollow shadows around the enigmatic towers of the dazzlingly patterned ships. The only sound was his breathing. He felt wonderfully alone here; even the Mind couldn't communicate with him here as long as he kept the suit's communicator turned off. Here was perfect; here was total and complete loneliness, here was peace, and quiet, and a fire in the vacuum. He lowered his gaze again, towards the embers.
Something glinted near the floor of the hall, a couple of kilometres away.
His heart seemed to freeze. The thing glinted again. Whatever it was, it was coming closer.
He turned the suit communicator on with a shaking hand.
Before his quivering fingers could tap in a question to the Mind, the display on his visor-screen, lit up: Gestra, we are to be visited. Please return to your quarters.
He stared at the text, his eyes wide, his heart thudding in his chest, his mind reeling. The glowing letters stayed where they were, they added up to the same thing; they would not go away. He inspected each one in turn, looking for mistakes, desperately trying to make some different kind of sense from them, but they kept repeating the same sentence, they kept meaning the same thing.
Visited, he thought. Visited? Visited? Visited?
He felt terror for the first time in one and a half centuries.
The drone which had glinted in the shadows, which the Mind had sent to summon him because his suit communicator had been turned off, had to carry the man back to his quarters, he was shaking so much. It had picked up the oxygen cylinder too, turning it off.
Behind it, the fire went on glowing faintly for a few seconds in the darkness, then even that baleful glimmer succumbed to the empty coldness, and it winked out.
5. Kiss The Blade
I
The Explorer Ship Break Even of the Stargazer Clan's Fifth fleet, part of the Zetetic Elench, looped slowly around the outer limit of the comet cloud of the star system Tremesia I/II, scanning beams briefly touching on as many of the dark, frozen bodies as it could, searching for its lost sister vessel.
The double-sun system was relatively poor in comets; there were only a hundred billion of them. However, many of them had orbits well outside the ecliptic and that helped to make the search every bit as difficult as it would have been with a greater number of comet nuclei but in a more planar cloud. Even so, it was impossible to check all of them; ten thousand ships would have been required to thoroughly check every single sensor trace in the comet cloud to make sure that one of them was not a stricken ship, and the best the Break Even could do was briefly fasten its gaze on the most likely looking candidates.
Just doing that bare minimum would take a full day for this system alone, and it had another nine stars allocated to it as prime possibilities, plus another eighty less likely solar systems. The other six vessels of the Fifth fleet had similar schedules, similar allocations of stellar systems to attempt to search.
Elencher ships sent routine location and status reports back to a responsible and reliable habitat, facility or course-scheduled craft every sixteen standard days. The Peace Makes Plenty had signalled safely back to the Elench embassy on Tier along with the other seven ships of the fleet sixty-four days after they'd all left the habitat.
Day eighty had come, and only seven had reported in. The others immediately stopped heading any further away if that was the course they'd been set on; four days later, still with no word, and with no sign of anybody else having heard anything, the seven remaining ships of the Fifth fleet set their courses to converge on the last known position of the missing ship and accelerated to their maximum speed. The first of them had arrived in the general volume where the Peace Makes Plenty ought to be five days later; the last one appeared another twelve days after that.
They had to assume that the ship they were looking for had not travelled at that sort of speed since it had last signalled, they had to assume that it had been cruising, even loitering amongst the systems it had been investigating, they had to assume that it was somewhere within a stellar system, small nebula or gas cloud in the first place, and they had to assume that it was not deliberately trying to hide from them, or that somebody else was not deliberately trying to hide it from them.
The stars themselves were relatively easy to check; microscopic as it might be compared to the average sun, a half-million tonne ship containing a few tonnes of anti-matter and a variety of highly exotic materials falling into a star left a tiny but distinct and unmistakable flash behind it, and usually a mark on the stellar surface that lasted for days at least; one loop round the star could tell you if that kind of disaster had befallen a missing craft. Small solid planets were easy too, unless a ship was deliberately hiding or being hidden, which of course was perfectly possible in such situations and considerably more likely than a ship suffering some natural disaster or terminal technical fault. Large gaseous planets presented a bigger challenge. Asteroid belts, where they existed, could pose real problems, and comet clouds were a nightmare.
In the vast majority of solar systems the spaces between the inner system and the comet cloud were easy to search for big, obvious things and pointless to search for small things or anything trying to hide. Interstellar space was the same, but much worse; unless something was trying to signal you from out there, you could more or less forget about finding anything smaller than a planet.
The Break Even and its crew, like the rest of the fleet, the Clan and the Elench, had no illusions about the likelihood of success their search offered. They were doing it because you had to do something, because there was always just a chance, no matter how remote, that their sister ship was somewhere findable and obvious- orbiting a planet, sitting in a 1/6 Stabile round a big planet's orbit — and you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if you took the cold statistical view that there was next to zero hope of finding the ship intact, and then later discovered it had been there all along, savable at the time but later lost because nobody could be bothered to hope — and act — against the odds. Still, the statistics did not make optimistic reading, indicating that the whole task was as close to being impossible as made little difference, and there was a morbid, depressing quality about such searches, almost as though they were more a kind of vigil for the dead, part of a funeral ceremony, than a practical attempt to look for the missing.
The days went by; the ships, aware that whatever had befallen the Peace Makes Plenty might as easily happen to them, signalled their locations to e
ach other every few hours.
Sixteen days after the first ship had started searching and hundreds of investigated star systems later, the quest began to be wound down. Over the next few days, five of the ships returned to the other parts of the Upper Leaf Spiral they had been exploring while two remained behind in the volume the Peace Makes Plenty ought still to be in, somewhere, carrying out more thorough explorations of the star systems as part of their normal mission profile, but always hoping that their missing sister ship might turn up, or at the very least that they might uncover some fragment of evidence, some hint of what had happened to their missing sibling.
The fact that the ship had disappeared would not be reported outside the fleet for another sixteen days; the Stargazer clan would pass the sad news on to the rest of the Elench eight days subsequently, and the outside galaxy would be informed, if it cared, another month after that. The Elench looked after their own, and kept themselves to themselves, as well.
The Break Even powered away from the last stellar system it had investigated, leaving the red giant astern with a kind of dismal relief. It was not one of the two craft who'd stay to continue the scaled-down search; it was heading back to the volume where it had been before the Peace Makes Plenty had gone missing. It kept all its sensors sweeping on full scan as it moved away from the giant sun, through the orbits of two small, cold planets and, further out, the dark, gelid bodies of the comet nuclei. Its course took it directly towards the next nearest star; on the way it swept interstellar space with its sensors too, still hoping, still half dreading… but nothing turned up. Esperi's single, dim-red globe fell away astern, like an ember cooling to ash in the freezing night.
A few hours later the ship was out of the volume altogether, heading out-down-spinward back to its allotted crop of distant, anonymous stars.
II
[tight beam, M32, tra. @n4.28.860. 0446]
xGSV Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The
oEccentric Shoot Them Later
I think I have discovered something. Attached are course schedules for the Steely Glint and Wo Fixed Abode. (DiaGlyphs attached.) (The movements of the Not Invented Here can only be guessed at.) Note that both alter within hours of each other for no given reason, nineteen days ago. The GCU Fate Amenable To Change which discovered the Excession also made a sudden and acute course-change nineteen days ago; a new heading which took it almost straight to the Excession. Then there is a report from the GCU Reasonable Excuse — charged with oversight of our semidetached friend the GCU Grey-Area — that the ship left its most recent place of interest two days ago and was last detected heading in the direction of the Lower Leaf Swirl; possibly Tier.
oo
[tight beam, M32, tra. @n4.28.860.2426]
xEccentric Shoot Them Later
oGSV Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The
Yes?
oo
Do not be obtuse.
oo
I am not being obtuse.
You are being paranoid.
A lot of course schedules have been altered recently thanks to this thing.
I'm thinking about finding an excuse to edge in that direction myself.
And as you point out yourself, the Meatfucker is heading towards the Lower Swirl, not the Upper.
oo
There is a certain potential rendezvous implied in that direction; do I have to spell it out? And the point remains; these are the only three schedules which change at the same point.
oo
They alter over the course of five hours; hardly a "point'. And even so; what if they do? And what's so special about nineteen or even nineteen/two days ago?
oo
[stuttered tight point, M32]
It does not worry you that there might be a conspiracy in the highest levels of a Contact/SC committee? I am suggesting that there may be prior knowledge here; that some tip or clue was received by one of our colleagues which was not passed on to anybody else. That is what is so special about nineteen days ago; it is less than fifty-seven days ago, when whatever took place in the vicinity of the excession appears to have occurred.
oo
Yes yes yes. But: SO WHAT? My dear ship, which of us has not taken part in some scheme, some ruse or secret plan, some stratagem or diversion, sometimes of quite a sizable and labyrinthine nature and involving matters of considerable import? They're what makes ordinary life worth living! So some of our chums in the Core Group may have had a sniff of something interesting in that region. Good for them, I say! Have you never had some clue, some lead, a hint of some potential sport, amusement, jape or focus of contemplation that was certainly worth acting upon but equally decidedly did not merit advertising due to some reservation concerning potential embarrassment, the wish not to seem vain or simply a desire for privacy?
Really, I think there is no conspiracy here whatsoever, and that even if there is, it is a benign one. Apart from anything else, there is one question you have not, I believe, addressed: What is the conspiracy for? If it was merely a couple of Minds getting wind of something odd in the Upper Leaf Spiral and finessing a search there, are they not simply to be congratulated?
oo
But there has been nothing this important before! This is perhaps our first real OCP and we may not be up to the challenge it represents. Meat it makes me ashamed! I just find this all so distressing! For millennia we have congratulated ourselves on our wisdom and maturity and revelled in our freedom from baser drives and from the ignobility of thought and action that desperation born of indigence produces. My fear — my terror! — is that our freedom from material concern has blinded us to our true, underlying nature; we have been good because we have never needed to make the choice between that and anything else.
Altruism has been imposed upon us!
Now suddenly we are presented with something we cannot manufacture or simulate, something which is to us as precious metals or stones or just other lands were to ancient monarchs, and we may find that we are prepared to cheat and lie and scheme and plot like any bloody tyrant and contemplate adopting any behaviour however reprehensible so that we may grab this prize. It is as if we have been children until this point, playing without care and dressing in but not filling adult clothes, blithely assuming that when we are grown we shall behave as we have done in the headlong, heedless innocence that has been our life so far.
oo
But, my dear friend, none of this has happened yet!
oo
Have you not carried out the projections? I took your advice to spend more time in metamathical pursuits, modelling the likely course of events, divining the shape of the future. The results worry me. What I feel myself worries me. I wonder what we may stop at, what we may not stop at to attain the prize this Excession may offer.
oo
I meant spend more time enjoying yourself, as you well know. Besides: simulations, abstractions, projections; these are only themselves, not the reality of what they claim to represent. Attend to the actuality of events. We have a fascinating phenomenon before us and we are taking all reasonable precautions as we deal, or prepare to deal, with it. Some of our colleagues show laudable enterprise and initiative while others — ourselves — exhibit caution just as commendable as — and in sum complementary to — their ambition. What is there to fear but the wild imaginings which may well be the result of looking too far beyond the scale of relevance?
oo
I suppose so. Perhaps it is me. Certainly I see worrying signs everywhere. I dare say it must be me. I may still make some further inquiries, but I take your point.
Make your inquiries if you must, but frankly I think it is this constant urge to inquire that causes you such pain; when one is able to scrutinise a subject as closely as we are — and to do so with the cross-referential capacity we possess, then the closer one looks into anything the more coincidences one finds, perfectly innocent though they may be.
What is the point of inquiring at such depth that one l
oses sight of the sunlit surface?
Lay up that magnifying glass and take up thy drink glass, my friend.
Slip off the academic gown and on with the antic pants!
oo
I thank you for your advice. I am reassured somewhat. I shall consider what you say. Do keep in touch. Farewell for now.
[stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @n4.28.862.3465]
xEccentric Shoot Them Later
oLSV Serious Callers Only
The Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival was in touch again (signal file attached). I still think it could be one of them.
oo
[stuttered tight point, M32, tra. @n4.28.862.3980]
xLSV Serious Callers Only
oEccentric Shoot Them Later
And I still think you should let it in with us. It almost certainly now suspects you are part of the conspiracy.
oo
I have an image to maintain! And I would point out that we are still very much in the dark; we are not yet sure there is a conspiracy beyond the kind of normal outsmarting, outcliqueing nonsense in which all of us indulge from time to time. What purpose would formally extending the circumference of our concern serve, for now? Our sleuth is still behaving as though it is one of us but it knows nothing of our scepticism; we have naught to gain by bringing it aboard at present. If it is genuine it will apply itself to our purpose and if discovered the shadow of its guilt will not fall across us; if it is a test then it — they — may decide to bait us with more information of genuine interest, delivered at no cost to our virtue. Are we agreed? Have I convinced you? Anyway, enough of that; have we yet a plan? What was the result of your own investigations?
oo
Frustratingly vague. An exhaustive search has thrown up one remote possibility… but it remains an improbability predicated upon an uncertainty.
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