by Robert Reed
Thirty years to fall.
Twenty-five.
And now, little more than twenty.
Perhaps nobody has heard me. Among the captains and other informed parties, that possibility makes itself plain. The assumption is that life is plying its way through that darkness. But really, why is life reasonable? The slow ships could be stupid machines left behind by some lost species. The rivers of ionized water vapor might have natural origins, as do the warm little worlds. What do we know about the dark nebula? Not enough, plainly. And even if there are intelligent species lurking within, what does the evidence show? The neighboring worlds describe a multitude of forms and designs. Perhaps it is exactly that simple. A titanic volume of space and matter has enough room for hundreds of species. But unlike the Great Ship, they aren’t united under a single golden hand. They could be a rabble, happy or otherwise, and for reasons that haven’t yet been imagined, none of these species are able or willing to answer the calls from the hot bright universe beyond.
Without evidence, that idea blossoms.
And then just as the new possibility begins to generate strategies and benefits—just as the experts start to craft a menu of new voices for me, perhaps to be used in one great chorus—the answer finally arrives.
Brief, it is. Compressed, and elegant, and thorough, and in every way, reassuring. The face that first shows itself is smiling. The face seems altogether human. Handsome and male, he is. And the voice is smooth and happy, and warm, the smiling mouth producing a smooth rain of greetings wrapped around the simple and unlikely admission:
“My name is O’Layle. 1 was a passenger on the Great Ship. When things looked very bad for us, I fled.” He pauses long enough to laugh at his own cowardice. “I probably would have died, like most of the scared bats. But I was lucky. One of the polypond scout ships was far from home, and it heard my beacon, and luckily it was able to track me down. It caught me and saved me, and you can imagine how pleased I was.”
This is the first time that a name is heard.
Polypond.
Explaining the name, O’Layle admitted, “I’m not a linguist. But the name seems to do a fair job of capturing what they call themselves.”
The image widens.
The one-time passenger sits lightly in a web-chair. A thousand cues show that the resident gravity is barely ten percent of one gee. “This is my home,” says the lucky man. “As it happens, this is where they’d like you to send a mission. Diplomats. Crew members. Passengers like myself. They want a good fair cross section of humans from every part of the ship.”
A knowing twinkle passes through the man’s pale yellow eyes.
“It’s my fault, I suppose. Their stock in humans, I mean. I explained how we found the ship and won control, and that matters to them. They take great stock in ownership, it seems.”
Again, the eyes twinkle.
Behind O’Layle is his present home. Visual cues and easy conjecture point to a floating structure drifting on the surface of a watery body. Walls are defined by dark ribs and arching panes of some transparent material. The panes aren’t diamond, probably Nor glass. But the refractory properties and the available materials hint at some flavor of plastic, very strong and easily manufactured. There are a few scattered furnishings, and to one side stands a round platform, flat on top except for a few tidy lumps. A bed, in other words. Beyond the farthest walls is open water, reassuringly blue under a high cloud-blotted sky. The horizon is close. The world seems to be Martian in size but considerably less massive—not unlike a ball of water wrapped around a small core of stone and common metals. The atmosphere has to be very deep and warm, and it is lit by an array of circular lights fixed to some kind of ceiling. The human says as much, explaining, “The Blue World has a roof to keep in the heat, to keep in the atmosphere. The daylight is for my sake. Most of the time, this is how things appear …”
With those words, the lights in the sky are quenched.
Moments later, the unseen camera adjusts its eye, and what has been brilliantly bright becomes a different kind of brilliant. The world that was lit from above is now illuminated from below, from just beneath the surface and from realms considerably deeper. The high wet clouds manage to glow with an occasional lick of lightning, and their bellies reflect the glow of the endless sea. But most interesting is the water. What was just visible before becomes obvious now. Objects are moving beneath the surface. Careful eyes make out the hints of fins and tentacles and fleshy appendages with no clear shape. Something vast swims close enough to make the house roll on the sudden waves, and afterward, O’Layle laughs gamely while remarking, “I have many neighbors.”
His own floor is transparent. Probably plastic like the walls, and with darkness above, it turns perfectly clear.
He looks between his bare feet, watching some great shape swim away. Except for a small swatch of fabric around his groin, the human is naked. By every visible measure, he looks healthy. Well fed and rested. He looks like a man near the end of a wonderful long holiday, and with a matching voice, he says, “The polyponds are rather different from us.”
He is happy, but more than one human observer makes the same comment: it is an ageless, enduring happiness. The smile and hearty voice are too steady and certain, if that is possible. The accounts supplied by O’Layle’s old friends, plus the volumes of recorded moments from his various public lives, show a man who has never been so easily blissful, nor as thoroughly satisfied as he seems now.
“Polyponds are very large creatures,” he announces.
Somehow the smile brightens, and he adds. “They are patient and thorough, and from what I gather, they’re very well organized. I know they haven’t shown it, but they heard your broadcasts. They’ve been analyzing them. They’ve shown them to me, inviting my comments. My help. And because their ocean … what you call the Inkwell … is a big place, their response has been slow in coming.”
Again, the happy laugh interrupts the monologue, stealing away some of its slight momentum.
“Polyponds don’t have a Master Captain,” he explains. “Decisions require time and some measure of consensus. But their leaders, their most important voices … they want you to come visit us here. A meeting between emissaries. And as I said, they’d prefer a human entourage. Since our species has control of the ship, we have won the honor.”
A new motion grabs the careful eye.
O’Layle straightens his back for a moment, and with a voice meant to sound casual, he mentions, “They aren’t a genuine species, by the way. Not like we think of species.”
Behind and to the right of O’Layle, something moves. From among the pillows of his large round bed, a figure sits up and gives a lazy, long stretch. With the light coming up from below, the area above the bed is in shadow. A long limb stretches, but details are scarce. But then the sleepy body turns just enough to supply a silhouette, and every human notices the rounded form of a breast and the meaty nipple riding on the tip.
“They aren’t a species,” he repeats, facing the unseen camera. “Not so much as they are all species. Whatever they wish to be, I guess you’d say.”
Again, he says the name.
“Polyponds.”
The alien slides out of the bed. She is long and well proportioned. She is perfectly naked and absolutely unperturbed by her appearance. To the eye, she looks as if she is the end product of a billion years of life on a terran world. And as far as any eye can tell, she is human.
“Their name comes from their origins, I believe,” says O’Layle. “Although they don’t seem quite sure about where they came from. And from what I gather, they don’t seem to care much about the subject.”
O’Layle hesitates, probably feeling his house rocking on the water as she approaches.
She kneels behind him, and with a warm strong voice tells her distant audience, “Welcome to you, my friends.”
Her long legs straighten, stretching forward, one lying on each side of the little web-chair.
“What do you make of this?” the Master Captain asks her nearest officers. “Tell me. First impressions.”
I try to speak, but no one hears me.
Washen glances at the others, and then her eyes return to the rest of the brief, dense message. The only Submaster who actually gives an opinion is a harum-scarum. With an easy paranoia, Osmium pointed out, “This is simple biology. Make yourself bigger than your rivals, and you win every fight.”
Again, I try to offer my little thoughts.
“It’s a stupid strategy,” the harum-scarum declares. “If it wasn’t, we’d all be a thousand kilometers tall!”
Washen smiles knowingly.
But the Master says what many are thinking:
“How can we be sure they aren’t that tall?” Then with a light bitter bite, she laughs louder than anyone else.
Eleven
There was no particular point where a mark had been crossed, no precise hour or moment when they could confidently tap ceremonial bulbs of bright liquor against one another, crystal ringing in warm hands as they congratulated themselves for breaching a barrier and entering an entirely new realm. Even the ship’s AI held no consistent opinion about when they had reached the Inkwell—and that from a stubborn entity with views on every imaginable subject. They were still months removed from the nebula, slicing across seemingly empty space, when their maneuvering rockets began firing every few minutes. Stripped of every gram of excess mass, the streakship had been left with more grace than armor. Smoke-sized particles of dust could be absorbed by the hyperfiber prow, but only for a time. Lasers were used to erode or shove aside anything larger than a grain of sand. But giant hazards—pebbles and whole comets—were best avoided entirely. The same lasers flooded the space ahead with picosecond bursts of light, and the AI watched for the spectral reflections of lurking carbon and frigid ice. At a fat fraction of lightspeed, there was barely enough time to see everything and react appropriately. But by the same token, the streakship was narrow and lean, and auxiliary rockets no bigger than a thumb could be fired anywhere along its hull, giving it one or a hundred useful nudges. The nudges were what the passengers noticed. When several rockets fired in tandem, the ship gave a little shiver, the cumulative vibrations slipping through the hull. Shove the streakship’s trajectory a few millimeters now, and they would eventually miss the hazard by thousands of kilometers. But every new trajectory revealed more little motes and goblins waiting in ambush. Plus there was the fierce, uncompromising need to hold to their essential course. Every correction demanded an equal countercorrection, and every brief firing of the tiniest rocket meant consequences that had to be measured, then erased by a sleepless machine designed for this narrow job, bringing with it an intellectual clarity, a wealth of experience, and a numbing and shameless pride.
“I am not the Elassia,” the machine liked to boast.
Pamir usually clamped his mouth shut, saying nothing.
“With me,” it would purr, “you wouldn’t have died between the stars.”
Ages ago, while he still felt like a young man, Pamir had served on board a far more primitive starship. The Elassia had collided with a hunk of comet, everyone aboard killed in a single fiery instant. But luck and a predictable course meant that Pamir’s remains were discovered eventually. Enough of his mind survived to fill the rebuilt body, and the tragedy as well as his own incredible luck had given him a certain lingering fame.
The AI knew the Elassia’s story, and it knew Pamir. The boasts were bait. It loved to tease the ship’s captain, pointing out all of its laudable features as well as the rapid, unconscious brilliance that it brought to this vital undertaking.
“From ten light-hours out,” it claimed, “I could fly us through a barn door.”
What a peculiar expression. Pamir’s first instinct was to consult the library. His second instinct was to ask the AI for an explanation. But the best response was to do nothing. With a conspicuous indifference, Pamir drifted into the middle of his tiny cabin, busily preparing both of the day’s routine messages.
“Through the barn door,” the voice continued, “and in another ten light-hours, I could slip us under the Arch of the Accord.”
An old Martian sculpture, Pamir recalled. But he remained focused on his own uninspired work. An unbroken telemetry stream was being maintained with home, but a more thorough report was dispatched every twenty-four hours, encrypted and launched inside a pulse of infrared laser light. The routine was perfectly normal in these kinds of missions. What was unusual was the second message, considerably shorter and more heavily encrypted: a soft whisper, in essence; a few words offered to a closer set of ears.
“I am a marvel of design and hard experience,” the AI remarked.
It was, and it was. But why repeat what everybody knew full well? With a lazy indifference, Pamir stretched his long back and told the ship, “Send out the dailies, now.”
“This marvel shall,” said the AI.
And then, “I have.”
“Thank you.”
An instant later, Pamir heard what sounded like a burst of rain against a distant roof. They were still five light-weeks removed from what might or might not be the edge of the Inkwell. But there were more hazards every day—nearly invisible twists of grit with the occasional thumb-sized shard of ice. Quietly, Pamir asked, “Is it only dust?”
“To the best of my considerable knowledge, it is. Nothing but.”
“Show me a sampling,” he persisted. “Five hundred spectrum, spread across the last ninety minutes.”
The data were delivered in an instant.
Again, the AI mentioned, “I am perhaps the finest vessel ever built.”
Finally, Pamir took the bait. With a grimace and a slow smile, he asked, “What about the Great Ship?”
“Slow and fat,” the AI replied.
“Vast and safe,” Pamir countered. “Ancient and marvelous. Mysterious and polite.”
“Polite?”
“Silent,” he joked.
Again, the sound of rain drifted inward, coming this time from a different portion of the hull. And then moments later, there was a rattling roar directly in front of Pamir. With a grim little smile, he muttered, “I understand.”
Silence.
“I know what you’re feeling,” Pamir continued, using an insight he had carried for the last few weeks. “Don’t try to fool me. Because you can’t.”
“What do I feel?” asked a doubtful voice.
“Afraid.”
Silence.
“We’re diving into blackness,” said Pamir. “Faster than anyone should, we’re going to race toward a world you can barely see through all this nastiness. The Master sends us charts, and the polyponds give you advice. But everything you receive from them is weeks out of date, and the charts never quite agree with one another. Which is reasonable, considering the limits of everyone’s sensors. And you’re responsible for more than any sentient soul would wish to be. Our lives. Your own existence. The fate of billions, perhaps. And just maybe, the survival of a giant machine that might be as old as the universe.”
Again, silence.
Pamir laughed quietly, his focus returning to the volumes of data. What he saw was scrupulously ordinary dust. But what else would there be? A useful paranoia mixed with the wildest speculations, and he ordered a new sequence of spectra along with a hammering of microwaves.
“It’s a tough, damning burden,” he echoed. Then with a nod, he added, “Bluster is a good trick. But if you ever feel your bluster wearing thin, tell me. Right away, tell me.”
The proud voice asked, “What will you do then?”
&nbs
p; “I’ll share my luck with you,” Pamir remarked. “And believe me. If it comes to it, you’ll be happy to get all the luck you can … !”
QUARTERS WERE CLOSE, and after ages spent wandering through the vast halls and rooms of the Great Ship, the crew had to make adjustments. Frames of reference had to diminish, personal space retreating to a cramped minimum. In place of ten-hectare apartments and endless possessions, a tiny cabin and a single uniform had to be enough. And as the mission progressed, that narrow existence had to become natural, or better, feel like more than plenty.
“Humans are adaptable creatures,” Perri proclaimed one day, tucked into one of the narrow slots inside their very tiny galley. Eating a slice of cultured petty roast, he happily added, “‘We’re more adaptable than most species, from my experience.”
“Or more stupid,” Pamir replied.
Quee Lee seemed to be listening to their little argument. To the eye, she was lovely enough that Pamir found himself instantly aware of her location in any room, and unlike her husband, she preferred to look like a woman who enjoyed what was once called middle age. She had pleasantly rounded features and an easy warm smile. There was a little gray in the bright black hair. But the smile had retreated, and with a voice just hinting at worry, she said, “It’s getting louder.”
The rainlike rumbling, she meant.
Maneuvering rockets were firing in tens now, constantly and fiercely, and they were still five or six or maybe ten days from the Inkwell. Not for the first time, or last, Pamir reminded everybody, “We’ll adjust our tolerances, eventually.”
Cut down the distances between near collisions, he meant.
“Besides,” he continued, “the polyponds maintain that the debris fields won’t get any worse. Not along our course, at least.”
Only a few people took the trouble to reexamine the aliens’ charts. Most couldn’t find reassurance from a species they didn’t know, much less believe those broad claims of sweeping the worst dangers out of the blackness before them. That kind of trickery seemed unlikely. Or it was just too sweet. Or worst of all, it was all true—the polyponds genuinely wielded complete control over the whereabouts of every mote and snowflake inside their homeland—and that type of power was too impressive, too incredible and odd, and with the slightest shift of mood, it could prove deadly.