Across the Sea of Suns

by Gregory Benford

“I haven’t seen you around Control lately.”

  Nigel turned back to look at the distant ruddy disk of Isis. “I’d have been in the way.”

  “Look, I know you don’t go along with the orders from Earthside, but I’m sure I can rely on you to pitch in where your talents are needed, especially—”

  “Yes, right, team player and all that.” He folded his arms.

  “You didn’t attend the community talks—didn’t think I’d notice, did you?”

  “Hadn’t thought, actually.”

  “Well, I did, and it was too bad your point of view wasn’t better represented there.”

  “Would’ve made no difference. Earthside calls out, ‘Forge on, mates!’ and off we go.”

  Ted allowed a flash of irritation to cross his face. “Okay, I agree those set-tos were pretty much pro forma, but—”

  “Listen.” Nigel tapped his wrist. A slow but intricate strumming filled the view chamber, seeming to come from the imaging wall itself. “They’re sending their art, their history, the lot.”

  “Well, yes, but in the form of myths and stories and a lot of indecipherable detail that—”

  “That could be understood, in time. Particularly if we operated on the surface, where we could develop some visual signs to help break through the misunderstanding.”

  “We need to see the pattern to all this, Nigel. That means exploring more than one system. Whatever happened here is long past. We need a line on the general picture, other stars—”

  “I was willing to stay behind. A small team could—”

  “Could starve to death, yeah. There won’t be a backup expedition for decades, maybe longer. I can’t spare crew.”

  Nigel gestured. “They’ve been calling a long time. Now we’ve made contact, and then like a flash cut it off. Imagine what that will do to them.”

  “Sure, and imagine what those Watchers could do to us. There’s more riding on Lancer than I can risk just to—”

  “Shore up some scruffy washouts and have nought to show for it?”

  “Damn! You’re a sore loser, aren’t you?”

  “Right, now that you mention It. It’s a long way to the next stop, and I have to go whether I want to or not.”

  Ted touched his front teeth together and rubbed them carefully back and forth, clearly calculating. “I’ll put you in charge of our continuing radio link with the EMs.”

  Nigel sniffed. “A token. I’ll take it, but you know full well we’ll get damn little through the ramscoop noise.”

  Ted shrugged. “Them’s the breaks.”

  “The maths types have already determined that we’re the first contact the EMs have had. If we break off, even for a while the blow to their—”

  “Nigel, the decision’s made.”

  “By an array of experts.”

  “Essentially, yeah. You got a better way? We can’t run Lancer as a seat-of-the-pants showboat. Everybody’s glad as hell to get away from the Watchers safely.”

  “Something tells me they’re not a significant danger—”

  “Changing your tune! Funny, I remember you were the one who warned us not to touch down on that Watcher, and now you’re—”

  “As I was about to say, not significant unless they’re provoked.”

  “Why? With dozens dead—?”

  “A hunch.”

  “I can’t run a ship on hunches,” Ted said sourly. “I need you to help process the data feed we’re just starting to get from the gravitational lens back Earthside. You can have your hunches on the side.”

  Nigel smiled. “I’m getting too many votes in the ship-wide congress, eh?”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “I’d scarcely want your job anyway.”

  “There’s always a faction that’ll follow your line of thinking. If you could bring them around—”

  “Around to what? I’m not maneuvering against you, Ted.”

  “If the people you influence don’t go along with our general policy, that’s divisive.”

  “Uh-huh. Science is like that. Full of incorrigibles.”

  “This isn’t science, it’s leadership we’re talking.”

  “Maybe the best way to lead is to do nothing.”

  “What in hell’s that mean?”

  “You don’t see that Watcher jumping to conclusions.”

  “I don’t see it doing anything.”

  “Quite. Patience is a strategy, too.”

  “I’m getting full up to here with you, Nigel.”

  “You’re at the end of a long queue. My whole career’s been shot through with that sort of thing.”

  “You’re pretty goddamn cavalier about it.”

  “At my age you have to be.”

  “Smug, aren’t you!”

  “You’re not getting the message, Ted.”

  “Which is?”

  “Why can’t I get on with Americans? Lets put it this way—we’re not talking foreign policy, we’re talking alien policy. Listen to that EM song for a moment.”

  “Yeah. Indecipherable without computers.”

  “I doubt that computers alone could turn the trick. I doubt the Watcher did.”

  “It’s had the time.”

  “Right, but not the hormones, y’see.”

  “So?”

  “So maybe it’s not there to decipher at all. Think about the design of such a thing. It has to last millions of years. Sure, it can repair itself within limits—but who fixes the fixers? You can’t rely on redundancy alone for insurance. So your strategy becomes molelike. You make your Watcher careful, conservative. Don’t waste energy. Don’t risk damage of materials.”

  “Then why not try to knock us all off, once it killed some of us?”

  “Beyond repelling boarders, maybe there are more important objectives. Perhaps it had something more to learn.”

  “Like what?”

  “Where we came from? What we intend?”

  “Look, there wasn’t time for that Watcher to trigger landings on Earth. Elementary—”

  “Granted. So something knew before.”

  “What?”

  “Perhaps the Snark?”

  “You know ISA doesn’t accept your interpretation of that.”

  “Quite.”

  “This is just a bunch of speculation, Nigel!”

  “For once, I agree.”

  “Not worth undermining my position.”

  “I believe this is where I came in.”

  Nigel stood silent, watching the dwindling light of Isis. “Look,” Ted said to break off, “I’ve got to run. Think all this over, huh? Come by for a drink.”

  He left quickly. Nigel had let the soft swelling notes of the EM fugue fill the room, thinking it would have the same effect on Landon as it did on him, but the tactic had proved pointless. Others did not seem to hear the same plaintive wail in the widely spaced clicks and jarring clatter. The sounds would fade now, as Lancer boosted to near light speed. Perhaps he could have learned something from their songs of vast and empty times, the rolling centuries of sameness.

  So now Lancer scratched a line across the darkness, fleeing the Watcher, which had won. In this strange strategy, Nigel glimpsed, information was worth more than mere bodies. It was in the nature of organic beings, forged by evolution’s hand, to survive for the moment. To flee. While the Watcher could track Lancer by its fusion flame. And no matter how swiftly Lancer flew, communications at light speed would always outrace her.

  PART FOUR

  2081 EARTH

  ONE

  The wind had backed into the northeast and was coming up strong again. Warren watched the sullen clouds moving in. He shook his head. It was still hard for him to leave his sleep.

  It was three days now since he had passed the island. He had thought much about the thing with Rosa. When his head was clear he was certain that he had made no mistake. He had let her do what she wanted and if she had not understood it was because he could not find a way to tell her, it was the se
a itself which taught and the Skimmers too and you had to listen. Rosa had listened only to herself and her belly.

  On the second day past the island, the air had become thick and a storm came down from the north. He had thought it was a squall until the deck began to pitch at steep angles and a piece broke away with a groan. Then he had lashed himself to the log and tried to pull the plywood sheet down. He could reach it, but the collar he had made out of his belt was slippery with rain. He pulled at the cracked leather. He thought of using the knife to cut the sheet free but then the belt would be no good. He twisted at the stiff knot and then the first big wave broke into foam over the deck and he lost it. The waves came fast then and he could not get to his feet. When he looked up it was dark overhead and the plywood was wrenched away from the mast. The wind battered against the mast and the collar at the top hung free. A big wave slapped him and when he next saw the sheet it had splintered. A piece fell to the deck and Warren groped for it and slipped on the worn planking. A wave carried the piece over the side. The boards of the deck worked against each other and there was more splintering among them. Warren held on to the log. The second collar on the mast broke and the sheet slammed into the deck near him. He reached for it with one hand and felt something cut into his arm. The deck pitched. The plywood sheet fell backward and then slid and was over the side before he could try to get to it.

  The storm lasted through the night. It washed away the shelter and the supplies. He clung to the log, and the lashing around his waist cut into him in the night. Warren let the water wash freely over the cuts, the salt stinging across his back and over his belly, because it would heal faster that way. He tried to sleep. Toward dawn he dozed and woke only when he sensed a shift in the currents. The wind had backed into the northeast. Chop still washed across the deck and a third of the raft had broken away, but the sea was lessening as dawn came on. Warren woke slowly, not wanting to let go of the dreams.

  There was nothing left but the mast, some poles he had lashed to the center log and his knife and arrow. From a pole and a meter of twine he made a gaff with the knife. The twine had frayed. It was slow work and the twine slipped in his raw fingers. The bark of the log had cut them in the night and they were soft from the water and the rubbing. The sun rose quickly and a heat came into the air that worked at the cuts in him and made them sweat. He could feel that the night had tired him and he knew he would have to get food to keep his head clear. The Skimmers would come to him again he knew, and if there was a message he would have to understand it.

  He made the knife fast to the pole with the twine but it was not strong and he did not want to risk using it unless he had to. A green patch of seaweed came nearby and he hooked it. He meant to use it for bait if he could, but as he shook it out small shrimp fell to the planking. They jumped and kicked like sand fleas, and without thinking Warren pinched off their heads with his finger-nails and ate them. The shells and tails crunched in his teeth and filled his mouth with a salty moist tang.

  He kept a few for bait even though they were small. The twine was too heavy for a good line but he used it as he had before, in the first days after the Manamix went down, when he had tried with some of their food as bait and had never caught anything. He was a sailor but he did not know how to fish. He set three trailing lines and sat to wait, wishing he had the shelter to stop the sun. The current moved well now and the chop was down. Warren hefted the gaff and hoped for a Swarmer to come. He thought of them as moving appetites, senseless alone, but dangerous if enough came at once and butted the raft.

  He bent over and looked steadily at a ripple of water about twenty meters from the raft. Something moved. Shifting prisms of green light descended into the dark waters. He thought about a lure. With Rosa it had been simple, a movement to draw them in and a quick shot. Warren turned, looking for something to rig to coax with, and he saw the trailing line on the left straightened and then the line hissed and water jumped from it. He reached to take some of the weight off and play in the line. It snapped. To the right something leaped from the water. The slim blue form whacked its tail noisily three times. Another sailed aloft on the other side of the raft as the first crashed back in a loud white splash. A third leaped and shone silver-blue in the sun and another and another and they were jumping to all sides at once, breaking free of the flat sea, their heads tilted sideways to see the raft. Warren had never seen Skimmers in schools and the way they rippled the water with their quick rushes. They were not like the Swarmers in their grace and the way they glided in the air for longer than seemed right, until you looked closely at the two aft tails that beat the water and gave the look of almost walking.

  Warren stood and stared. The acrobatic swivel of the Skimmers at the peak of their arc was swift and deft, a dash of zest. Their markings ran downward toward the tail. There were purplings and then three fine white stripes that fanned into the aft tails. There was no hole in the gut like the place where the Swarmers spun out their strands. Warren guessed the smallest of them was three meters long. Bigger than most marlin or sharks. Their thin mouths parted at the top of the arc and sharp narrow teeth showed white against the slick blue skin.

  It was easy to see why his clumsy fishing had never hooked any big fish. These creatures and the Swarmers had teeth for a reason. There were many of them in the oceans now and they had to feed on something.

  They leaped and leaped and leaped again. Their fore-fins wriggled in flight. The fins separated into bony ridges at their edge and rippled quickly. Each ridge made a stubby projection. The rear fins were the same. They smacked the water powerfully and filled the air with so much spray that he could see a rainbow in one of the fine white clouds.

  Just as suddenly they were gone.

  Warren waited for them to return. After a while he licked his lips and sat down. He began to think of water without wanting to. He had caught some rain in his mouth the night before but it was little. When the waves were washing the deck he had been forced to stop because the salt water would set him back even though it would have felt good to drink it along with the rain.

  He had to catch a Swarmer. He wondered if the Skimmers drove them away. To catch an ordinary fish would be a little help, but the ones out here did not give much liquid even when you squeezed the flesh and anyway he had only two lines now and the small shrimp for bait. He needed a Swarmer.

  In the afternoon he saw a rippling to the east but it passed going north. The high, hard glare of the sun weighed on him. Nothing tugged at his lines. The mast traced an ellipse in the sky as the waves came. The current ran strong.

  A white dab of light caught his eye. It was a blotch on the flat plane of the sea. It came steadily closer. He squinted.

  Canvas. Under it was a blue form tugging at a corner. Warren hauled it aboard and the alien leaped high, showering him, the bony head slanted to bring one of the big elliptical white eyes toward the figure on the deck. The Skimmer plunged, leaped again, and swam away fast, taking short leaps.

  Warren studied the soggy, bleached canvas. It looked like a tarp used to cover the gun emplacements on the Manamix but he could not be sure. There were copper-rimmed holes along one edge. He used them to hoist it up the mast, lashing it with wire and punching new holes to fasten the boom. He did not have enough lines to get it right but the canvas filled with the quickening breeze of late afternoon.

  He watched the bulging canvas and patiently did not think about his thirst. A splash of spray startled him. A Skimmer—the same one?—was leaping next to the raft.

  He licked his swollen lips and thought for a moment of fetching the gaff and then put the idea away. He watched the Skimmer arc and plunge and then speed away. It went a few tens of meters and then leaped high and turned and came back. It splashed him and then left and did the same thing again.

  Warren frowned. The Skimmer was heading southwest. It cut a straight line in the shifting waters.

  To keep that heading he would need a tiller. He tore up a plank at the raft edge a
nd lashed a pole to it. Fashioning a collar that would seat in the deck was harder. He finally wrapped strips of bark firmly into a hole he had punched with the gaff. They held for a while and he had to keep replacing them. The tiller was weak and he could not turn it quickly for fear of breaking the lashing. It was impossible to perform any serious maneuver like coming about if the wind shifted, but the sunset breeze usually held steady, and anyway he could haul down the canvas if the wind changed too much. He nodded. It would be enough.

  He brought the bow around on the path the Skimmer was marking. The current tugged him sideways and he could feel it through the tiller, but the raft steadied and began to make a gurgle where it swept against the drift. The canvas filled.

  The clouds were fattening again and he hoped there would not be another storm. The raft was weaker and the boards creaked with the rise and fall of each wave. He would not last an hour if he had to cling to a log in the water.

  A heavy fatigue settled in him.

  The sea was calming, going flat. He scratched his skin where the salt had caked and stung. He slitted his eyes and looked toward the sunset. Banks of clouds were reflected in the ocean that now at sunset was like a lake. Waves made the image of the clouds into stacked bars of light. Pale cloud, then three washes of blue, then rods of cloud again. The reflection made light seem bony, broken into beams and angles. Square custard wedges floated on the glassy skin. He looked up the empty sky, above the orange ball of sun, and saw a thin streak of white. At first he tried to figure out how this illusion was made, but there was nothing in optics that would give a line of light that jutted upward, rather than lying horizontal. It was no jet or rocket trail. It thickened slightly as it rose up into the dark bowl of the sky.

  After describing it to himself this way Warren then knew what it had to be. The Skyhook. He had forgotten the project, had not heard it mentioned in years. He supposed they were still building it. The strand started far out in orbit and lowered toward the Earth as men added to it. It would be more years before the tip touched the air and began the worst part of the job. If they could lower it through the miles of air and pin it to the ground, the thing would make a kind of elevator. People and machines would ride up it and into orbit and the rockets would not streak the sky anymore. Warren had thought years ago about trying to get a job working on the Skyhook, but he knew only how engines worked and they did not use any of that up there, nothing that needed air to burn. It was a fine thing where it caught the sun like a spider thread. He watched it until it turned red against the black and then faded as the night came on.