Across the Sea of Suns

by Gregory Benford

  Slowly he gathered, from slight elevations of eyelashes and side glances of friends, that his birthdays were not seen now as accomplishments, but as postponements. He looked for some weariness with life, with the doing of things, that would make the end less fearsome.

  Surprisingly, perhaps gladly, he couldn’t find any.

  Nigel looked from the prelim photos of Ross 128. “Pretty blurred,” he said to Nikka.

  They’re from the gravitational telescope. Years old, of course—they’re working as fast as they can, but the light-travel delay—”

  “Right.” He studied the hazy blobs. “Some Jovians, two terrestrials. Not bad.” Because Lancer had boosted to 0.98 light speed, these images were only a few months older than the first ones they had received, years ago, back at Isis. “Carlotta’s working on reprocessing this stuff, isn’t she? When will we get better—”

  “She’s in the Slots.”

  “What? I didn’t—How long?”

  “Two weeks now.”

  Nigel was startled. He hadn’t even noticed her absence. And he disliked abrupt changes like this, friends suddenly disappearing. “When do they uncork her?”

  “Six months, I think.”

  “We’ll be nearly at landfall then!”

  Nikka looked up from her workpad. “Slots are R and R. She’ll come out refreshed, able to relieve somebody who’s been hustling to get ready for Ross.”

  “Ummm.” He frowned. “Seems reasonable … but … I don’t like it.” He shook his head and went back to mulling over the prints. But he could not concentrate.

  EIGHT

  Warning gongs rang throughout Lancer. Nigel crossed his legs and ignored them. The ship was striking a dense dust cloud, and the ramscoop would either work or not, nothing he could do would matter. He slid a stick into the spine of a book and opened it. The stick overfilled the book, so he thumbed for the second projection and started reading on page 287. And then Tom he talked along and talked along, and says, le’s all three slide out of here one of these nights and get an outfit, and go for howling adventures amongst the Injuns, over in the territory, for a couple of weeks or two; and I says, all right, that suits me, but I ain’t got no money for to buy the outfit, and I reckon I couldn’t get none from home—

  “Nigel!” his comm cried. He tapped his fingernail in answer. “Cut into shipspeak—fast.” It was Nikka, gone before he could reply. He punched into his flatscreen and overvocal and listened.

  drive tube’s holding okay max’ed on momentum transport

  betcher butt we’re gonna sail right through no prob

  what’s the sci package picking up I’m gettin’ funny

  it’s dropped clear of our wake now pickin’ up samples

  look it that absorption line there, big fat one sittin’ at 2200 angstroms thick as your thumb

  absorption cross section about 4 tim 10-17 cm2 yeah

  I got the culprit right here, the sampler’s got a slide on now, looks like silicate grains only that’s no silicon line

  average size right aroun’ 10-5 cm I make it

  Christ ’at stuff is peptides clear as a bell see those linkages

  long chain stuff too all over the outer surface of those grains things are coated with it like an oil slick or somethin’

  I don’t get it we’re seem’ amino acids in there too

  those’re supposed to be dust particles what’s that stuff doing sticking to

  look at that structure like a wall, long chains and the rest it’s a cell barrier got to be

  doesn’t make sense

  only use for a cell wall is to keep out your enemies

  out here that means ultraviolet, UV’d blow those peptide chains to hell except for that li’l membrane there, bet it’s got silicon in it to block the UV

  so peptides can stay inside the cell wall an’ link up an’ reproduce ’at’s the only thing logical I can make out

  living stuff in clouds I don’t look it’s cold as a hoor’s tit out there what’s the thermodynamic driver for life

  lots of IR around that’s how you saw that absorption line, same line that comes in most carbon complexes

  see there in the middle that’s a silicate, the original piece of dust this cell started out on I bet

  an’ two of ’em stickin’ together right there look the chains are migratin’ to the cell wall that’s it that’s it

  my Gawd the density of ’em in here the ram-scoop is nearly chokin’ on ’em and the fluxlife is gettin’ barnacles of this goop all over we’re gonna have to clean up this mess

  mess hell it’s reproducing cells man in these big clouds, there’s more mass in these clouds than in the goddamn stars for sure, look at all the dark patches in the night sky for sure it means there’s this peptide chem happenin’ everywhere …

  Nigel watched the list of molecules and free radicals stack up: ethanol, cyanoacetylene, carbon monoxide, ammonia, methane, water—and realized that as far as the universe was concerned, this was where chemistry occurred. The planets were negligible. Driven by starlight, here the twisting coils had time to find their mates and build even more complexity. These molecular clouds were the compost heaps where the stars formed. They also swept through solar systems, littering the planets with sticky, hungry cells.

  In the tenor of the crew voices he heard a strain of excitement. They had seen dozens of dead worlds and now had stumbled blindly into a caldron of life. The molecular clouds were the most massive objects in the galaxy, and they had been brewing longer than the stars. Lancer surged and burned a hole through this one, leaving fiery remnants. Ahead, glimmering dimly through the smoky fog of chemistry, was the wan glow of Ross 128.

  PART SEVEN

  2081 EARTH

  ONE

  In midafternoon six delta-planes came in low, made a pass and arced up, one at a time, to land in V-mode. They came down in the rocky area to the south, and a few minutes after the shrieking engines shut down three squads of fast, lean-looking infantry came double-timing onto the beach.

  Warren watched them from the shade where he sat within clear view of Gijan. The man had made him carry the radio and power supply from its concealment in the scrub and onto the beach, where he could talk down the planes. Gijan shouted at the men and they backed away from the beach where the Skimmers might see them. A squad took Warren and marched him south, saying nothing. At the landing site, men and forklifts were unloading and building and no one looked at him twice. The squad took him to a small building set down on rocky soil and locked him inside.

  It was light durablock construction, three meters square with three windows with heavy wire mesh over them. There was a squat wooden chair, a thin sleeping pad on the floor, and a fifty-watt glow plate in the ceiling that did not work. Warren tasted the water in a gallon jug and found it tepid and metallic. There was a bucket to use as a toilet.

  He could not see much through the windows but the clang and rumble of unloading went on. Darkness came. A motor started up nearby and he tried to tell if it was going or coming until he realized it was turning over at a steady rpm. He touched the wall switch and the soft glow above came on, so he guessed the generator had started. In the dim light everything in the room stood out bleak and cold.

  Later a muscular soldier came with a tin plate of vegetable stew. Warren ate it slowly, tasting the boiled onions and carrots and spinach and tomatoes, holding back his sudden appetite so that he got each taste separately. He licked the pan clean and drank some water. Rather than sit and think fruitlessly he lay down and slept.

  At dawn the same guard came again with more of the stew, cold this time. Warren had not finished it when the guard came back and took it away and yanked him to his feet. The soldier quick-marched him across a compound in the pale morning light. Warren memorized the sizes and distances of the buildings as well as he could. The guard took him to the biggest building in the compound, a prefab that was camouflage-speckled for the jungle. The front room was an office with Gijan sitt
ing in one of the four flimsy chairs and a tall man, Chinese or Japanese, standing beside a plywood desk.

  “You know Underofficer Gijan? Good. Sit.” The tall man moved quickly to offer Warren a chair. He turned and sat behind the desk and Warren watched him. Each motion of the man had a kind of sliding quality to it, as though he was keeping his body centered and balanced at all times to take a new angle of defense or attack if needed.

  “Please relax,” the man said. Warren noticed that he was sitting on the edge of the chair. He settled back in it, using the moment to locate the guard in a far corner to his right, an unreachable two meters away.

  “What is your name?”

  “Warren.”

  “You have only one name?” the man asked, smiling.

  “Your men didn’t introduce themselves either. I didn’t think I had to be formal.”

  “I am sure you understand the circumstances, Warren. In any case, my name is Tseng Wong. Since we are using only single names, call me Tseng.” His words came out separately, like smooth round objects forming in the still air.

  “I can see that conditions have been hard on you.”

  “Not so bad.”

  Tseng pursed his lips. “The evidence given by your little”—he searched for the word—”spasm in the face, is enough to show me—”

  “What spasm?”

  “Perhaps you do not notice it any longer. The left side, a tightening in the eyes and the mouth.”

  “I don’t have anything like that.”

  Tseng looked at Gijan, just a quick glance, and then back at Warren. There was something in it Warren did not like and he found himself focusing his attention on his own face, waiting to see if there was anything wrong with it he had not noticed. Maybe he—

  “Well, we shall let it pass. A casual remark, that is all. I did not come to criticize you but to, first, ask for your help, and second, to get you off this terrible island.”

  “You coulda got me off here days ago. Gijan had the radio.”

  “His task came first. You are fascinated by the same problem, are you, Warren?”

  “Seems to me my big problem is you people.”

  “I believe your long exposure out here has distorted your judgment, Warren. I also believe you overestimate your ability to survive for long on this island. With Underofficer Gijan the two of you did well enough, but in the long run I—” Tseng stopped when he saw the slight upward turn of Warren’s mouth that was clearly a look of disdain.

  “I saw that case of rations Gijan had stashed back in the brush,” Warren said. “None of you know nothing about living out here.”

  Tseng stood up, tall and straight, and leaned against the back wall of the office. It gave him a more casual look but put him so that Warren had to look up to talk to him.

  “I will do you the courtesy of speaking frankly. My government—and several others, we believe—has suspected for some time that there are two distinct populations among the aliens. One—the Swarmers—is capable of mass actions, almost instinctive actions, which are quite effective against ships. The others, the Skimmers, are far more intelligent. They are also verbal. Yet they did not respond to our research vessels. They ignored attempts to communicate.”

  Warren said, “You still have ships?”

  For the first time Gijan spoke. “No. I was on one of the last that went down. They got us off with helicopters, and then—”

  “No need to go into that,” Tseng cut him off smoothly.

  “It was the Swarmers who sank you. Not Skimmers,” Warren said. It was not a question.

  “Skimmer intelligence was really only a hypothesis,” Tseng said, “until we had reports that they had sought out single men or women. Usually people adrift, though sometimes even at the shore.”

  “Safer for them,” Warren said.

  “Apparently. They avoid the Swarmers. They avoid ships. Isolated contact is all that is left to them. It was really quite stupid of us not to have thought of that earlier.

  “Yeah.”

  Tseng smiled slightly. “Everything is of course clearer in, as you say, the rearview mirror.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It seems they learned the bits of German and Japanese and English from different individual encounters. The words were passed among the Skimmers so that each new contact had more available vocabulary.”

  “But they didn’t know the words were from different languages,” Gijan added.

  “Maybe they only got one,” Warren said.

  “So we gather,” Tseng said. “I have read your, ah, summary. Yours is the most advanced contact so far.”

  “A lot of it doesn’t make much sense,” Warren said. He knew Tseng was drawing him into the conversation, but it did not matter. Tseng would have to give away information to get some.

  “The earlier contacts confirm part of your summary.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “They said that Swarmers can go ashore.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “It’s in the stuff I wrote. The stuff Gijan stole.”

  Gijan said sharply, “You showed it to me.”

  Warren looked at him without expression and Gijan stared back and after a moment looked away.

  “Let us not bother with that. We are all working on the same problem, after all.”

  “Okay,” Warren said. He had managed to get the talk away from how he knew about the Swarmers going on the land. Tseng was good at talking, a lot better than Warren, so he would have to keep the man away from some things. He volunteered, “I guess going up on the shore is part of their, uh, evolution.”

  “You mean their development?”

  “They said something, the last day I saw them, about a deathlight. A deathlight coming on the land and only the Swarmers could live through it.”

  “Light from their star?”

  “Guess so. It comes sometimes and that’s why the Skimmers don’t go up onto the land.”

  Tseng stood and began pacing against the back wall. Warren wondered if he knew that Swarmers had already gone inland on an island near here. Tseng gave no sign of it and said out of his concentration, “That agrees with the earlier survivors’ reports. We think that means their star is irregular. It flares in the UV. The Swarmers have simple nervous systems, smaller brains. They can survive a high UV flux.”

  “For about two of their planet’s years, the Skimmers said,” Warren murmured. “But you’re wrong—the Swarmers aren’t dumb.”

  “They have heads of mostly bone.”

  “That’s for killing the big animals, the ones that float on the surface of their sea. Something like whales, I guess. Maybe they stay at the top to use the UV or something.”

  “The Swarmers ram them, throw those webs over them? Sink them?”

  “Yeah. Just what they did to our ships.”

  “Target confusion. They think ships are animals.”

  “The Swarmers, they drag the floaters under, eat some kind of pods inside ’em. That’s what triggers their going up on the land.”

  “If we could find a way to prevent their confusing our ships with—”

  Gijan said, “But they are going to the land now. They are in the next mode.”

  “Uh-huh.” Warren studied the two men, tried to guess if they knew anything he could use. “Look, what’re they doing when they get ashore?”

  Tseng looked at him sharply. “What do the Skimmers say?”

  “Far as I can tell, the Swarmers aren’t dumb, not once they get on land. They make the machines and stuff for the Skimmers. They’re really the same kind of animal. They grow hands and feet and the Skimmers have some way to tell them—singing—how to build stuff, make batteries, tools, that stuff.”

  Tseng stared at Warren for a long moment. “A break in the evolutionary ladder? Life trying to get out of the oceans, but turned back by the solar flares?” Tseng leaned forward and rested his knuckles on the gray plywood. He had a strange weight and force abo
ut him. And a desperate need.

  Warren said, “Maybe it started out with the Swarmers crawling up on the beaches to lay eggs or something. Good odds they’d be back in the water before a flare came. Then the Skimmers invented tools and saw they needed things on the land, needed to make fire or something. So they got the Swarmers, the younger form of their species, to help. Maybe—”

  “The high UV speeded up their evolutionary rate. Perhaps the Swarmers became more intelligent, in their last phase, on land, where the intelligence would be useful in making the tools. Um, yes.”

  Tseng gave Gijan an intense glance. “Possible. But I think there is more than that. These creatures are here for some purpose beyond this charming little piece of natural history we have been told. Or sold.”

  Tseng turned back to Warren. “We have our partially successful procedures of communication, as you have probably guessed. I have been ordered to carry out systematic methods of approach.” He was brisk and sure, as though he had digested Warren’s information and found a way to classify it. “Yours will be among them. But it is an idiosyncratic technique and I doubt we could teach it to our field men. Underofficer Gijan, for example.” The contempt in his voice for Gijan was obvious. “Meanwhile, I will call upon you for help if we need it, Warren.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He took a map of the ocean from his desk drawer and flipped it across to Warren. “I trust this will be of help in writing your report.”

  “Report?”

  “An account of your interactions with the aliens. I must file it with my superior. I am sure it will be in your own interests to make it as accurate as possible.” He made a smile without any emotion behind it. “If you can fix the point where your ship went down, we might even be able to find some other survivors.”

  Warren could see there was nothing in this last promise. He thought and then said, “Mr. Wong, I wondered if I could, you know, rest a little. And when the guard there brings me my food, I’d like a long time to eat it. My stomach, being out on the ocean so long, it can’t take your food unless I kind of take it easy.”