There was also a packet of personal mail, which she duly distributed. There were several messages for George.
Tor had fourteen. There was no junk mail. Interstellar communication was too expensive. These would all be personal or professional correspondence. She relayed them to his mailbox, where they would await his return.
Alyx received an invitation to speak to a Parisian working group on a date she couldn’t possibly make. The fee was generous, and the exposure would be helpful, but she remained philosophical. “I’m alive,” she said. “If this mission does nothing else, it’s given me some perspective on my priorities.”
There were only a few pieces for Hutch. A commission was being assembled to look into the loss of the Wendy Jay.
That was routine, and she’d been expecting it. Since she’d been on hand, they’d want her to testify.
Her mother had read the mission had taken casualties and urged her to be careful. A couple of former male companions took advantage of the opportunity to say hello and wish her well. Omega Styling (“The Last Word in Fashions”) offered her a lucrative endorsement contract, and someone who was writing a book on the chindi wanted to interview her at the earliest possible moment. He, too, was on his way to Gemini, although he didn’t say how or when he’d arrive.
THEY EMERGED IN the 97 system on the third day after making their jump into the sack. Tor’s clock showed four days, twenty-two hours remaining.
Hutch’s first act was to ask Bill whether he was picking up any stray signals. It was unlikely that the chindi could have beaten them there, since theory dictated that all vehicles moving through hyperspace traveled at the same velocity relative to the standard space-time continuum. But that was theory, and if the chindi actually possessed advanced technology, who knew what they might be capable of doing?
In any case, Bill replied as expected: “We are not receiving anything from our transmitter.” Then he appeared on-screen, up close, eyes intense. “But we are getting a distress call.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “Bill’s having a breakdown,” he said.
They were a hundred light-years outside the bubble. In a place nobody had ever gone before. “Bill, how would you know it’s a distress call?” she asked.
He appeared across the room, a VR version, white slacks, navy blue shirt, anchor on the breast pocket. “It’s in English,” he said.
Chapter 29
Bless me, how little you look. So shall we all look—kings, and kaisers—stripped for the last voyage.
— CHARLES LAMB, “TO THE SHADE OF ELLISTON,” 1831
MAURICE MOGAMBO STEPPED out of the lander, took a few steps, and stopped to gaze at the Retreat. The oculus window gave it a kind of surprised look. How good to see you, Maurice. Nice of you to come by. We don’t get visitors here very often.
And yes, it’s true, that other group that was here earlier was right. I served as a refuge for two remarkable entities. They worked and studied here, and lived their lives undistracted by the routines you have to deal with. No bureaucracies, no competing specialists, no petty jealousies. Socrates would have been at home here.
The delegation that had accompanied him was spilling out across the shelf. Some had already surrounded the other lander. Martinson was on its ladder, and poking his head inside. Sheusi was gazing over the edge of the precipice. Hawkins was kneeling, chipping off a rock sample. Alvarez was taking pictures, recording every step of the inspection.
He was suddenly aware that Chardin was standing beside him. But Chardin understood this was not a time for idle conversation, and so he stayed a few paces to the rear, allowing Mogambo to absorb the moment.
It was, of course, the climax of a life already rich in achievement. His only regret was that he had not been first. (But he felt a tinge of guilt, and knew it was an unworthy sentiment, wishing for primacy in a place that seemed almost sacred.)
He was about to go inside when John Yurkiewicz, the Longworth’s captain, buzzed him. “Maurice,” he said, “We’ve completed the sweep of the other moons.”
Mogambo shook away the irritation he felt at being disturbed. Then he had to run the captain’s comment through a second time to extract its meaning. Damn. He knew what the result would be, but he had to be certain. “And is there anything of interest?”
“No, Professor. There’s nothing.”
“What about the Memphis? Have we heard from Hutchins?”
“The Memphis should be arriving about now at 97. But we haven’t heard from them yet. Do you wish me to contact them?”
“No. We have our plate full here at the moment, John. I’m sure they’ll let us know when they have something to report.”
Mogambo turned his attention back to the alien structure. It was, he thought, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
IN ENGLISH.
“Yes. They identify themselves as Venture SL002. Voice only.”
“Venture?” Nick’s eyes went wide. “That’s not—”
Bill put it on audio. “PLEASE ASSIST. VICINITY SEPC 6A1193KKM.”
“Registry number is correct,” said the AI. “There has only been one vessel with that name.”
“What’s SEPC et cetera?”
“It’s the designation for 97 in the Pandel-Corbin star catalog. Which would have been in use at the time the Venture was lost.”
Something cold gripped her heart. The Venture was the second ship to attempt superluminal travel. After the Terra had made its historic journey to Alpha Centauri forty-two years before, the Venture had embarked on a flight to Wolf 359, carrying with it a crew of four, a team of scientists, and an NAU senator. It had never been heard from again. A search of the area around Wolf 359 had revealed no evidence that it had ever arrived, and its disappearance became one of the enduring mysteries of the age. The common wisdom held that its drive—which was by modern standards primitive—had failed after it made its jump into the sack, and that it had been lost in hyperspace. As a result of the Venture experience, Hazeltine engines had been modified. Now, if a failure was imminent, the system immediately took the vessel back into standard space. That sort of unscheduled and unexpected jump had occurred several times, and had caused a few injuries. But no ship since the Venture had simply vanished.
“Location?” she asked Bill.
“Pretty much on the other side of the sun.” He showed her. “Solar orbit,” he added. “But in a lot closer than we are.”
Alyx, who’d been sitting quietly through all this, leaned over and put a hand on Hutch’s shoulder. “That’s good news,” she said.
“I guess.”
“How could it not be?”
“Alyx, why do you suppose the chindi’s so far off course? What’s the point of coming in way out here? Is their navigation equipment that bad? It would take months to get to the Venture from here, unless it jumps again.”
Bill looked thoughtful. “Hutch,” he said, “it may be that their mass renders them far more vulnerable than we are if they arrive at a site that’s already occupied by a solid object. It might be that the mere existence of a small rock in their jump area could destabilize the entire ship.”
“You really think so?”
“I have no idea. But it is a possibility. And it explains why they would come here, rather than jumping into the inner system.”
But they’d have to do a secondary jump to manage things within a reasonable time. Did they have some sort of advanced technology that would allow them to do a quick scan, make sure everything was safe, and move in closer?
“It amazes me,” said Alyx. “Wherever the chindi goes, there’s something unusual to look at.”
Nick laughed. “Typical archeologists. They ignore us when we show up and say hello. Their only interest…”
“…Is in the dead,” Alyx finished.
“Bill,” said Hutch, “we’ll do another jump. Get as close as we can, then set course for the Venture. Leave a hypercomm probe here to alert us when the chindi shows up.”
EV
ERY SCHOOLCHILD KNEW what the Venture looked like. Small fat vehicle that seemed to be mostly composed of rocket tubes. There were eight of them. Landers attached on both beams. (In those days, an extra lander was considered an essential safety feature.) There were no viewports. No transparent material that was considered adequate to the hazards of space travel had yet been developed. A World Council flag was emblazoned on the hull.
And, of course, there was the historic registry number. SL002. Second ship of its class, superluminal.
What was it doing out here?
It was in solar orbit, about 180 million kilometers from the sun. None of its lights was on, but an antenna was rotating slowly.
“Forty years,” Nick said. “Another thirty or so, and its distress signal will reach Outpost.”
“Do we board?” asked Alyx.
Hutch’s eyes closed. Here we go again.
“We’ve time,” Alyx continued. “We’ve got nothing else to do until the chindi gets here.”
“No,” she said, after a long hesitation. “Let’s leave them in peace.”
“The chindi won’t,” said Nick. “They’ll insert a team, take pictures, and make off with some artifacts. That’s what they do.”
It’s what we do, thought Hutch.
The ancient ship occupied half a dozen screens. Hutch stared at it, at the gray hull, still polished after so many years, at the rotating antenna, at the twin landers. She’d seen a model of it on display at the Smithsonian when she’d been about ten. It had chilled her then, and it chilled her now. “Who wants to come with me?” she asked.
Nick’s leg was not going to allow him to go. Actually, he looked relieved to have a legitimate reason to stay back. Alyx volunteered, but it seemed more an act of bravado than of enthusiasm. They were learning.
“Hutch.” Bill again. “There’s something else out there.”
The chindi had arrived. Whatever she was going to do, she’d have to hurry.
But it wasn’t the chindi. The navigation screen lit up, and she was looking at one of the bottles. “It’s in the same orbit as the Venture.”
“The thing’s a probe,” said Nick. “This is how the chindi knows which systems are worth visiting.”
“Bill,” said Hutch, “the bottles that the chindi fired off: Did we track any of them headed this way?”
“For 97? No, Hutch. None was launched on a vector that would have brought it here. Unless there was a course correction somewhere. I only tracked them a short distance. While I was watching, none of them made a jump.”
Alyx frowned. “That’s odd,” she said.
“Maybe not,” said Hutch. “It would have had to be launched earlier than the group we saw. Those wouldn’t have had time to get here and communicate the results back. The chindi knew where it was going before it launched its probes. I think its schedule is lined up in advance. Maybe it knows where its next three or four stops will be. By the time it’s completed those, it’ll have seen the results from the group we saw dispatched.” But that seemed to confirm their earlier suspicion that it was possible to construct superluminal engines that were quite compact.
Alyx shook her head. “Too complicated for me.”
“What you’re saying,” said Nick, “is that periodically it sends out a swarm of probes. They look at, what, a couple of thousand systems, and send back the results. Anything that looks interesting gets a visit from the chindi.”
“That’s what I think,” said Hutch. “They get a visit, and if they pass muster, they get permanent observation satellites.”
“The stealths,” said Nick. “Which also function as a communication relay. You know, we literally have an interstellar communication web.” He folded his hands together and braced his chin on them. “Who are these people? Who’s doing this?”
“Somebody with a sense of theater,” said Alyx. “I mean, these guys don’t just record anything. They seem to be looking for dramatic stuff. Wars, religious festivals, moon landings, lost starships. Maybe even romance.” Her eyes were shining. “It’s as if someone didn’t want anything to get lost.”
“I think the way it works,” said Hutch, “is that the chindi comes in, does whatever it intends to, picks up artifacts, whatever.”
“But who does that?” asked Nick. “We didn’t see any sign of life over there.”
“It has to be automated. This is a long-term mission. Centuries, if we can believe the age assigned to the satellites at Safe Harbor. So they’d have to go with machines.”
“I wonder,” said Bill, “if there are more of these things out there. Chindis.”
THE VENTURE DEPARTED Earth May 6, 2182, thirteen weeks after the Terra’s epic-making Hazeltine flight to Alpha Centauri. Those were heady days. Suddenly, almost without warning—for almost no one had really expected the FTL system to work—the stars had opened up, and ships would be able to travel to Barnard’s in half a day, to Sirius in twenty hours, to Aldebaran in less than a week, to distant Antares in less than a month. It had been the occasion for a celebrated remark by the vice president of the North American Union that we would soon be transporting tourists to the other side of the galaxy. He seems to have been unaware that such a trip, even using Hazeltine technology, would require more than fifteen years. One way.
The Venture’s captain was Joshua Hollin, a veteran astronaut who had been with the Lance units on the first manned flight to Saturn. His crew had consisted of a navigator, an engineer, and a medical officer.
The passenger list was filled out by an international team of physicists, planetologists, meteorologists, and even a contact specialist. And, of course, Senator Caswell. They were not chosen primarily for their academic credentials, as such a unit would be now. Rather, selections had been weighted toward those who’d been willing to undergo extensive physical training. Even at that stage, there had no longer been a rationale for the requirement. It was left from an earlier period, when just getting into orbit could put a strain on a middle-aged body whose owner had neglected basic maintenance.
Bill produced their pictures and bios. They were all relatively young. (Their flight was in an age before the breakthroughs in rejuvenation therapy.) Nine men, six women.
Including among their number a pair of newlyweds. All obviously delighted with their good fortune.
Three hours and seventeen minutes after departure from Earth orbit, they had jumped, and disappeared from history. They had FTL communication, but not the technology for communicating during hyperflight. So no one expected to hear from them until they arrived at Wolf 359.
The flight should have taken twelve hours. The message announcing their arrival should have been back forty-seven minutes after their arrival. By the early-morning hours of May 7, the flight directors were puzzled. By dawn, they knew something had gone wrong.
A third ship, the Exeter, was hurried along and launched fourteen weeks later. But neither it, nor any of the several flights that followed, could find evidence that the Venture had ever arrived at its destination.
Bill produced schematics for the Venture. They weren’t complete, and Hutch wasn’t especially familiar with the technology. What she most needed was a couple of disks that would be compatible with its operating systems. “I’m sorry,” Bill told her, “but we lack the capability to produce them.”
“Let me know,” Hutch told him when she was ready to go, “as soon as the chindi shows up.”
“I am not only listening for the beeper,” said Bill, “but I’ve activated the long-range sweep as well. We will have plenty of advance notice.”
“Good.” The rescue plan was simple enough: The chindi would have to go into a parallel orbit to begin its examination of the Venture. When it did so, the Memphis would launch the shuttle and pick up Tor. Simple.
Once he was off, Hutch would turn the chindi and the Retreat and the Venture and everything else over to Mogambo and head home. It was a good feeling, knowing it was almost over.
She and Alyx pulled on grip shoes, tested
their e-suits, and got into the lander. Hutch ran through her checklist and certified that they were ready for flight. The doors opened, lights went out, and they slid into the night.
THE VENTURE WAS still pressurized. Alyx watched Hutch remove a panel beside the airlock and open up manually. They passed through into the interior. “Air in here’s no good, Alyx,” she said, warning her not to shut off her suit.
Alyx had studied the layout of the Venture. She knew that the airlock opened into a common room, a chamber large enough to accommodate everybody. It was to have been a dining area, meeting room, and social center.
When the hatch cycled open, something moved in the dark interior. Alyx jumped, and literally came off the deck and crashed into a bulkhead. Hutch, equally startled, fell back into the lock.
When the beam from Hutch’s lamp revealed what had happened, Alyx got a second scare. They were face-to-face with a corpse.
It was afloat in the room, and apparently had reacted to air currents generated by opening hatches. It was mummified, its features so far dissolved that she couldn’t be sure whether it had been male or female. Hutch pointed at a second one, which had drifted into a corner. Alyx fought a sudden urge to bring up her lunch. She’d known before coming over that there would be bodies on the spacecraft, but she hadn’t thought it out, had expected them to be lying about.
She tried to concentrate on details. Their names. Get their names. Both bodies were in jumpsuits, and their name patches were clear. Saperstein. And Cheveau. She checked her list. A physicist from Bremerhaven, and a biologist from Marseille. Male and female. Twenty-five and twenty-six at the time of their deaths.
“What happened here?” said Hutch. Her voice sounded a few decibels higher than normal.
There were more corpses. Three in the galley, three in cargo, several in the living compartments.
Alyx wondered what had killed them. Had they simply run out of air?
Hutch seemed to know where she wanted to go, and Alyx stayed close. Her ankle was still a problem, but only if she lost track of what she was doing and forgot not to push off on it. Nick’s voice crackled over the commlink, asking what they had found.
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