A long haul, most of the way across human space. Human space. What a laugh. I said, “There’s about one interstellar crossing left in the system, you know. After that, I’ll have to refuel.”
It said, “There are... facilities on Snow. I can arrange for you to use them.”
“I always wanted to see Snow. Those ruins...” I plugged my license dongle into the ship’s waiting socket, then told the navigator it was time we were on our way. In a moment, blue light sprayed out across Pasardeng’s well-manicured lawn, an array of fantastic shadows, visible for just an instant before we fell into the sky.
o0o
A little more than a day, then the sixth planet of K2 star Groombridge 1618 grew in our viewscreens, a vast, flattened, reddish-orange world hanging against the black backdrop of the sky. Banded, lighter here, darker there, faint swirl of storms, it was a little bigger than Jupiter, a lot less massive, mother to the usual retinue of icy moons.
No habitable planets here. Nothing even close. Two innermost planets barely outside the star’s corona, bare balls of rock. Two more half the size of Mars, differentiated, but never having had water to concentrate their minerals into easily minable veins. A sparse asteroid belt. The standard batch of gas giants. The only reason humans ever came here is because it was relatively nearby, and because we could. Planet Six and its moons would have been useful, had there been a reason to open this star system to settlement, back in the days when people thought extrasolar colonies had some merit. A lot like Jupiter, sans those vast, worthless radiation belts. Organics all over the place, still cheaper to mine than to synthesize, but not so cheap they’d be worth shipping across interstellar space.
I could imagine those first explorers now, just like us, sweeping in through the system of moons, nearly featureless orange world scudding by below, ring of clouds round its north pole like some pale, monochrome target. And look there, moon number four, the big one, has an atmosphere. Sort of like Titan.
6iv was growing in the viewscreens now, yellowish, with distinctly pink highlights. Not exactly like Titan, of course, with its thick, impenetrable cover of smog. More like Titan as Bonestell imagined it, not long after Kuiper’s discovery was announced in 1949.
We fell into orbit around Snow, and I waited while the Kapellmeister used its pod software to talk to someone or something on the ground, inaudible to me, inaudible as well, apparently, to the ship’s AIs.
Through a thick, transparent atmosphere of blue-scattering nitrogen, I could see a whole world of low, rolling white mountains, mountain ridges capped by thick pink ice, ice contaminated with the organics that even a K2’s weak ultraviolet could synthesize. Sinuous valleys that looked like rivers. Things like lakes, even seas, filled with an ethane solution of ammonia.
Once upon a time, people imagined life in a place like this. Never found it anywhere, not here, or on any other ice moon, though worlds like this are common in the universe. Commoner than terrestrial worlds, at any rate.
Hard to imagine what the first bored explorers thought when they orbited 6iv, just the way we were now, looking down past pale, diffuse orange clouds, down at this empty snowscape and... There. Right there, in the lee of those mountains, by the shore of that small, irregular sea. Straight lines, angular shadows...
The Kapellmeister said, “I’ve arranged permission to land. You can set down as soon as Random Walk makes contact with ground control.”
Without my asking that they make it so, I heard the AIs chatter away on some high-speed channel to a counterpart somewhere down there, getting landing instructions, then the ship began a rapid deceleration, angling downward, dipping into the atmosphere as the landscape began to grow.
“What took so long?”
The Kapellmeister said, “No one was expecting us. The human team is, of course, a thirty year round trip, slower-than-light, from Earth. They had their first visit from the Trade Regency’s only FTL just weeks ago, now we appear, the third such visitor in their sky...”
Third. The ship skimmed low over pink-topped mountains, flat, tideless gray sea appearing below, came a halt and settled amid blue shadows at a small landing field beside a town of tan domes. From underneath, the sky was deep indigo, a nearly full Planet Six dominating everything, more than a full degree across, bright enough to wash out all the stars.
For a moment, the landscape, a space artist’s dream, caught my eyes and held them, fields of snow, hills, faraway mountains, the flat gray sea, Six’s image caught, upside-down, on its surface... breathtaking. Nearby, closer than the domes, a tractor rolling across the snow, human shapes dimly visible in its cockpit. Three small ships, no larger than this one, probably suited for little more than flying about among Six’s moons.
The scientists, the few hundred manning this base are stranded here, 15.29 light years from Earth, no starship of their own to carry them away at need...
The library whispered, Snow is isolated, away from the main clustering of stars with habitable worlds in this neighborhood. Earth is closest, at just over fifteen light years. Then Arous, at 16.38, then Kent at 18.02... An interesting litany, demonstrating how our perspectives have changed. What if there were another star, with warm, habitable worlds, only light weeks away? They could never reach it on their own, even though its star would shine like a brilliant jewel in the sky.
For a moment, lost in wondering, I don’t think I noticed the fourth ship. Just stared at it, details of its boxy, unusual design sinking in. “What the hell is that?”
The Kapellmeister jumped down from the flight engineer’s chair and started across the floor toward the hatch, feet tocking softly on the plastic. Some of its eyes seemed to float in my direction as it said, “A Salieran warship.”
Faint pang of alarm, without substance as yet. “From your... government?”
It paused by the hatch all eyes turned toward me now. “No. Some friends of mine have... taken it.”
“Stolen?”
“There is some disagreement among my people as to whom these ships actually belong.”
“Why? Why are they here?”
It opened the hatch, and said, “Apparently, archival research has suggested the possibility that there may be a telecannon here. That would be... unfortunate.”
“What do you mean?”
Long stare from featureless round eyes. Then it said, “They suspect an operational launcher for a teleport bomb.”
Out of nowhere, a momentary image of stars sparkling fantastically against a rich, deep black sky. It went down through the hatch while I looked once more through the viewscreen at the boxy ship and the ethereal landscape beyond, then I got up and followed.
o0o
We cycled through the airlock of the largest dome, and when the inner door slid open, warm, excessively humid air hit me in the face, making me recoil. Very poor engineering, old equipment inadequately serviced. When I stepped into the room, a deep voice boomed, “What the fuck? Who the hell are you?!”
A tall, skinny man in powder blue coveralls, some kind of star-and-orbit decal over his left breast pocket. Black hair, pale skin, ragged beard that might once have been a spade-shaped van dyke. Bright mulberry eyes, full of baffled fury just now. Behind him, there was a short, frightened looking young man and a chunky, stiff-faced blond woman.
I stepped forward, holding out my hand, and said, “Gaetan du Cheyne, owner and commander of Epimethean Registry Starship Random Walk. Um.” Who else am I? “Solar Regency citizen.” For what it’s worth.
“Are you from the government?” Desperate look in his eyes.
I wonder what the hell government he could be talking about? The Trade Regency? Not much more than a businessmen’s cabal. “No. Who’re you?”
Deflated. “Landau Martínez. Professor Magistrate of the Terran Pantechnological Institute on Crater. I’m in charge of the archaeological dig here. I...”
“TPI. Did you know Roald Berens and Ntanë Vataro?”
Baffled. “What? A little, sure, I...” Mart�
�nez seemed to shake suddenly, and shouted, “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?” He gestured at the Kapellmeister. “What’ve you got to do with these things, huh?”
These things? I said, “This is a friend of mine. They, uh, don’t have names.”
Eye-rolling exasperation. “I know they don’t have fucking names, God damn it! Look here, asshole, an armed fucking non-human warship landed here three days ago and...”
Snappety-snick. Snippy snap, snapple-snicker.
Sharp, scissory sounds, like so many pairs of primitive garden shears being worked at once. I turned toward the sound, Martínez and his friends spinning round as well, toward an open door at the far end of the room. Kapellmeisters. Six of them, trotting forward on all those little robot crablegs, waving their chelae, chattering away, eyes whirling and bobbing above their backs.
I thought, Something about the way those eyes are moving, the way their stalks twist round each other, then separate. Agitated. That’s it.
My Kapellmeister said, “Ah, now. They seem very upset.”
No shit.
The Kapellmeister ambled forward, feet making small sounds that echoed in the room, meeting the leader of these others in the middle. They stopped, eyes bobbing and weaving, chelae raised, like two absurd little monsters about to join battle. I noticed the other Kapellmeister’s eyes were a splendidly pretty shade of teal.
Then they extended their middle hands in unison, wet-looking black palms slapping together with a sound like raw meat, nine tentacles wrapping round nine tentacles. Motionless tableau, the two of them... frozen in place. Cartoon statues.
My Kapellmeister’s black box whispered, “Oh. I’m very sorry to hear that.
More silence.
Then it said, “Really. You must calm down. You’re only making things worse like this.”
Silence.
“You’re mistaken. Without these allies, we’re no better than they.”
Much longer silence. “Well then. We’ll see.” It let go of the other’s hand, turned and trotted back to my side, eyes floating very low over its back. It said, “We must go out to the dig. It seems the weapon has turned up, after all.”
“Oh.” I watched the other six Kapellmeisters turn and walk single file, silently from the room. “What did these guys think they were going to achieve by coming here like this? I mean, the jig’s up now, isn’t it? When the next human ship shows up here, everyone will know what’s going on, won’t they?” I gestured at Martínez and his two stunned-looking henchfolk.
The Kapellmeister stood still, looking up at me for a long time, eyes quite motionless now. Thinking? About what? Finally, it said, “Perhaps you will believe me when I say your own species has by no means cornered the market on stupidity.”
I thought about that. “A billion years of evolution, and you still produce assholes?”
Softly, Martínez said, “Look, will someone please...”
The Kapellmeister said, “This is much worse than you realize, Gaetan.”
“Why? You were probably going to wipe us out anyway.”
Martínez said, “What do you mean, wipe us out?”
The Kapellmeister said, “You must understand, we are the survivors of a civilization that destroyed itself out of selfishness and stupidity. I’d like to think we learned something, but...” It fell silent, eyes settling down onto the surface of its back, seeming far away. Finally, it said, “Gaetan, my people never had the teleport bomb. We were innocent bystanders, a minor species of no consequence whatsoever, who stood by while the disagreement between the StruldBugs and the Adversary Instrumentality escalated.”
Ancient history, four hundred million years gone, I suppose. “What are you telling me?”
One eye rose to confront me. “Gaetan, these friends of mine came here to make what you might call a preemptive strike. Back on Salieri, the Interventionists have argued that we take this weapon and use it to clear the Local Group of sentient life forms, once again. They argue that this is the only way to ensure peace.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call that peace.”
“No. But more and more of my fellows are listening to this logic.”
“And your friends? What’s their plan.”
Silence. Then, “They have no plan. All they hoped was to show that the weapon was not here.”
o0o
By the time we rolled up to the dig in the tractor we’d borrowed from the main base, Groombridge 1618 was settling on the horizon, a fierce white spark wreathed by dull blue clouds, casting long, pastel-tinted shadows across the white-ice landscape. Planet Six, of course, stuck to its place in the sky as though painted there, like some bizarre geosynchronous moon.
We depressurized the cockpit, raised the plastic hood, and got out. I walked a little bit away, turned around, taking in the landscape, listening to my booted feet crunch softly on the crisp snow surface.
Dry ice and water, whispered the library, unasked.
I looked down at the Kapellmeister’s familiar, naked form. “You’re not leaving any footprints in the snow.”
The synthetic voice of its pod began, weak and reedy, carried poorly by thin, dry air, then strengthened, reforming inside my head. “There’s an invisible technogenic structure around my body, similar in concept to your own suit, but a little more advanced.”
As if that explained everything. A second tractor, carrying the party of Kapellmeisters from the warship, crunched to a stop beside us, in its wake a third, with Dr. Martínez and some of his people, air puffing, brief fog as they depressurized and popped their canopies to get out. Other than the way the snow and ice was trampled, ruined by centuries of sparse tractor and foot traffic, you’d never know anything had ever lived in this landscape of low blue hills, hills before a backdrop of distant, rounded mountains, before the remote blue-black sky, orange light of Planet Six now the only light shining down, lighting the world with a cold fire.
We turned and walked together, a silent group, following the Kapellmeister’s lead along a rutted path across the flank of the nearest hill, until we crested a snowy ridge. Below, in a steep-sided bowl of a valley, bright white light flared, bringing a glisten to the landscape.
Martínez’ gruff voice, an angry mutter: “Bastard’s are heating things up. Contamination...”
Light. Heat. Surfaces melting.
But they hardly look like buildings anymore, though I understand the researchers have gone to great pains not to touch anything before it’s been properly investigated. Still, they do look like ruins, these low, humped remains of ancient walls, collapsed heaps and buckled structures that must obviously have once been buildings.
I said, “I guess four hundred million years doesn’t mean much in an environment like this.”
The Kapellmeister said, “No. It may be that this installation was subjected to some kind of attack, perhaps during the brief opening phases of the Shock War.”
I glanced at Martínez, who stood, looking silently at us, face and body language masked by his suit. We walked on, going through the ruins, past places where researchers had been so carefully pulling things apart, slowly, year after decade after century, meticulously picking their way deeper into the mystery. Finally, we came to the source of the light.
Long silence.
Then Martínez said, “Fuck.” Bleak despair.
The Kapellmeisters had set up something that looked just a little bit like a military particle beam generator, fat black box on a tripod with some kind of glassy rod poking out one side. Whatever it was, they’d evidently used it to burn a big crater right in the middle of everything. No telling what had once been on the missing surface, but you could see the melted edges of ancient walls ending where the void began.
The Kapellmeister said, “I’m sorry about this, but it doesn’t really matter. Not in the long run.”
Martínez was silent.
I said, “Is that it?” Down in the bottom of the crater, still half-embedded in translucent, wet-look
ing ice, was what appeared to be a concrete light pole, maybe a meter in diameter, four or five meters sticking out of the ice, dim blue shadows showing where it went on, for perhaps another two or three.
The Kapellmeister said, “Unfortunately... yes.” It turned away from me then and made chittering chelae talk with some of the others. Probably arguing the fate of the universe.
I jumped down into the crater, started to slip and fall on what really was wet ice, though it couldn’t possibly have been water, then the suit caught and stabilized me, so that I ran down the steep wall, finishing up against the... pole.
Nothing. Featureless. Might as well have been an antique sewer pipe. “So, what is this? The cannon or the bomb?”
“Both.”
I turned and watched as an avalanche of Kapellmeisters fell down the crater wall in my direction. I think I kept waiting for one or more of them to tumble, eyes flailing in all directions, but their legs stayed under them, scuttling nimbly, until I was surrounded by little black crab-things with lovely, colored velvet eyes.
I said, “Doesn’t look like much.”
“No. And yet, with this device, a diligent soldier could, in time, obliterate much of the universe.”
“Obliterate all life.”
“Oh, no. Everything. Stars. Planets... with sufficient determination, the disruption of whole galactic clusters would be possible.”
“That’s hard to visualize.”
“Indeed. During the brief interval between the invention of the teleport bomb and the eruption of war, it was theorized that a device like this may have been responsible for the large-scale structure of the universe. There was some talk about sending expeditions to investigate inter-cluster void spaces.”
Martínez, still looking down from the rim, said, “I’m not sure exactly what you’re talking about, but I know damned well the universe as a whole is entirely too young for its large-scale structure to be of technogenic origin.”
The Kapellmeister said, “Most primitive societies go through a phase where they discover the curious fact that some stars appear older than the age of the universe, as indicated by the general expansion constant. Theories are, of course, quickly and easily evolved which account for it. Even in our very advanced culture, we kept discovering discrepancies and then factoring them away.”
Acts of Conscience Page 37