Netherspace

by Andrew Lane

  There was a loud smack as Henk slapped the table. “Fucking simple? You think? Why are the aliens so fucking fascinated by us and our shit?”

  “Because they want to regain their lost creativity. Because their art has been reduced to basic symbols: a globe, a pyramid and a cube. So they bring our shit here and, well, try to copy it.” Tse looked directly at Marc. “It’s another reason why I’m here. I knew that the answer explaining the alien’s interest would be found on this planet. I had to be here. Greenaway agreed.”

  “They copy our stuff? Why?” Nikki wanted to know.

  “Because that’s how they think human art works,” Tse said. “One artist copying another. Progression. They’ve been trying to do the same. It hasn’t worked. Some of them wanted live humans. Others didn’t.”

  “Not wrong about art,” Henk said, drawing a resigned glance from Marc. “Another word is imitation. Or derivative. That’s why they chose you, Marc?”

  “All art develops one from the other,” Tse said hastily. “With Marc it was luck. But we’ll never know exactly why they chose him.”

  Kara decided the conversation had gone far enough. “All very enlightening,” she said firmly. “Tse, thanks for the heads-up. I may never visit another art gallery. People, I’m treating the drive failure as an accident. However, as and when we get a new one there will be a twenty-four-hour guard on the engine room. And if it transpires that someone here or one of the Pilgrims is a saboteur, I’ll hand them over to the Gliese myself – we have a fee problem. Another executive decision: it will be one of the Pilgrims and the oldest will draw lots. Now, suggestions on how we handle this, please.” She knew exactly how, but a group decision would help paper over some of the cracks beginning to appear.

  “It would start a riot,” Tate pointed out.

  “Not when they know the alternative is to die in space. Food won’t last forever. Recycling will break down. Oxygen’ll run out. No nice, human-friendly planet available. Give it a week and the Pilgrims will select their own fee, with a back-up in case the netherspace drive breaks again.”

  “It doesn’t have to be like that,” Tse said, his voice sounding newly authoritative. “I volunteer.”

  “You can’t,” Marc said reflexively. “You’re too valuable.” Kara just stared at the pre-cog with interest.

  “Sounds good to me,” Henk said, standing up. Nikki and Tate also got to their feet. “Tse wants to go, let him.” The three left, leaving Kara, Marc and Tatia staring at Tse.

  “Why?” Kara asked. “Because of…”

  “The other fee?” Tse asked bitterly. “The little girl I killed because my pre-cog abilities said it was the logical thing to do?”

  “She’d have died anyway.”

  “Suppose not?”

  Marc was about to speak when Kara hushed him. “Tse, is this about the other, alien pre-cogs?”

  Tse stood and looked sadly down at them. “When you’re a pre-cog you search for the obvious, the logical way. Surprises and chaos are like physical pain to us. That’s why alien pre-cogs distrust humans. You are too… interesting.”

  “You?” Marc said.

  Tse shrugged. “If it’s humans and aliens then it’s ‘us and them’, but if it’s pre-cogs and creatives then it’s ‘you and us’. Sides were chosen long ago. But, my problem is that I’m pre-cog and human. I’m torn between those of my kind, my real tribe… and humanity.”

  “Can’t fuck a Cancri,” Marc said crudely, “even if it is pre-cog.”

  Tatia looked at Marc and shook her head.

  “He’s got a point,” Tse said. “Sex makes me feel human. But only for a little while. I still perform,” he said defiantly. “As long as I keep on taking the pills. Every time I end up feeling more and more like a freak. That’s why I’m volunteering. That’s why you won’t stop me. I don’t belong here any more.”

  “Greenaway…” Kara began, knowing she had to say something.

  Tse waved her silent. “I told Greenaway that I might not return. He accepted the risk.” His glance fell briefly on Tatia. “I think I know why.”

  Kara came to a decision. “Go then. And thank you.”

  Tse nodded and looked around the canteen. “You know I’ve felt more human in this squalid room than ever before. With all of you. Even little things like arguing over what to eat, even though I pretty much knew what you’d all choose.”

  Marc got to his feet. “Is it okay to tell you I hate curry?” He suddenly felt sad.

  “It is – and thanks for pretending you didn’t. I have gifts for all of you. Gifts from the future, if you like. They’re not a hundred per cent accurate, but you know that.” He took a deep breath. “Kara, you will discover the truth about your sister. Marc, the same about your parents. But it will take a little longer. I don’t know if any of them are alive or dead. Tatia, you will discover the truth about your background in the Out, sooner rather than later. I don’t know if this will make any of you happier. But you will be more content. Telling you more than that would affect the likelihood of these things happening, so that’s all I can tell you.”

  The three nodded awkwardly. There was nothing to say.

  “One other thing,” Tse said. “Marc, you wondered why the Cancri chose you. Truth is, they didn’t.”

  “But that message… with my artwork…”

  “Which you never saw, did you? No. We needed a human who had previous contact with aliens and I saw you would be ideal. GalDiv lied. The same for Kara. You’re both here because of a pre-cog. Me. But I was right, wasn’t I?” He would have gone on but was suddenly aware of Kara standing stock still as she talked to her AI.

  “Company,” she said darkly. “Break out the weapons. When they board, I want each and every Gliese followed and scrutinised, whatever they do and wherever they go. If any of them try to break away from the sideslip-field generator then stop them – forcibly, if you have to. If they protest, shoot them. I don’t want to take any chances.”

  Marc smiled as the words of some long-ago lecturer flashed up in his mind. “The thing about assumptions,” he said, “is that they make an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’.”

  “And you have such a lovely ass.” Kara smiled.

  The screen flicked on, interrupting the discussion. As they watched, the newly arrived Gliese SUT drew near. It looked much the same as the last one had. Given the background of darkness and stars, it was impossible to tell whether it was larger or smaller. As before, a tunnel of foam burned away and a tubular walkway extended towards the RIL-FIJ-DOQ’s airlock.

  “I have to go and say some goodbyes,” Tse said. “I’ll see you in the anteroom by the airlock?”

  After he left Marc turned to Kara. “I’ll be there, despite all. You?”

  “Oh yes. You mind about not being specially chosen?”

  “Well, in a sense I was.” He thought about his art. “You know, I doubt my work means any more to the Eridani than any other human objects. Maybe they just wanted to hang out with an artist, any artist. Maybe some faction was trying to tell us back then that’s what really interests them: human creativity, however it comes. Don’t suppose we’ll ever know, will we?”

  The airlock area was declared temporarily off-limits. Pilgrims could watch on their screens.

  The replacement went as smoothly as ever – even more so for this time there was no lone Gliese gone walkabout. Only Kara, Marc and Tatia were in the anteroom shrine to Douglas Leeman-Smith, that unwilling sacrifice to galactic trade, to see Tse leave. He kissed them all on the cheek, then turned back to Marc.

  “Last words?” Marc asked as lightly as he could manage with a lump in his throat. Thinking this was a hell of a time to discover his lost humanity.

  Tse shrugged. “Save the galaxy?”

  Marc frowned. “The galaxy? What about the universe?”

  “One thing at a time,” Tse said, then took a deep breath, turned and followed the Gliese into the airlock, along the walkway and onto their transport.
r />   “I never did ask,” Kara said, “what was their SUT like?”

  “I was only there for a minute or so,” Marc remembered. “Saw where they keep the space drives, though. And their spacesuits. Or sleeping Gliese. Would imagine the engine room’s close by the drive storage room. Tse asked me the same question a day or so ago.”

  Just then Tate stormed in, face flushed with anger. “Fucking Gliese! They stole one of the platens.”

  Kara knew a terrible foreboding. “You’re sure?”

  “Only been me and them in the engine room,” Tate said. “Except Tse when he came to say goodbye. But he wouldn’t mess with a platen. I told you all how dangerous they could be when you came on board, remember? He did. Was asking about it only the other day.” He noticed Tatia looking blank. “If you put two of them on the sideslip-field generator at the same time then it tries to go in different directions. Tears itself and the ship apart.”

  “Did you leave Tse alone in there?” Kara demanded.

  “Only for a moment, I had to…” His face paled. “You can’t… you don’t…”

  Kara’s face was hard. She glanced at Marc. Maybe it was the lingering effects of the simulity, maybe just their emotional bond, but he knew exactly what she was thinking.

  “He’s going to blow them up!”

  “Just to be sure. Just in case a lone Gliese pre-cog on board does something to stop us.” She glanced at Tate. “Blast radius?”

  He shrugged helplessly. “Physical detritus – maybe a few hundred metres.”

  A cold hand squeezed Marc’s stomach, on the inside. Tse couldn’t, surely? But just in case. “Canteen’s in the centre of the SUT. Shielded by several shipping containers.” One of which contained the Pilgrims.

  Tate left hurriedly for the control room. Tatia, Kara and Marc clustered in front of the canteen screen.

  One moment the Gliese SUT was hanging in space. The next moment it vanished.

  Then it stuttered back into realspace some five hundred metres away. The image seemed to stretch.

  And then they watched as the Gliese SUT tried to go in two different directions at the same time, just as Tate had said.

  Two directions weren’t enough. The Gliese SUT began expanding in all directions, becoming a large glowing disc. The colour changed from red to white, purple, violet – and then became a wall of fire that rushed towards the RILFIJ-DOQ, stopped a hundred metres away then reversed direction and began to shrink as it grew brighter and brighter, so much so the three watchers had to turn away. When they did look back, the light had gone out.

  “So long, Tse,” Marc muttered. “I guess the Gliese engines were different. You were only meant to tear it in half.”

  “But why?” Tatia murmured, still looking at the screen.

  “Totally logical,” Marc explained. “He didn’t want to discover what the Gliese do to humans, but he didn’t want to be taken to join the alien pre-cogs either. I’d have done the same. Maybe.”

  Kara shook her head. “It wasn’t any of that,” she said impatiently. “Oh, maybe a little but perhaps there wasn’t any plan. Perhaps it was the most anarchic act Tse could imagine. And in that sense it was an act of creation. He’d lived nearly all his life trying to apply logic to a chaotic universe. He died finally embracing that same chaos. Making chaos. Don’t you see?”

  “Maybe,” Tatia said, her voice breaking as she pointed at the screen, “you’re probably right, chaos blah blah – but what the fuck is that?”

  It looked like a vast skeleton of curved metal. Scaffolding. It wasn’t easy to be sure because it was enveloped in a semi-translucent cloud that flickered as if created by a million lasers. There was no foam. Nothing like foam. What could be pods were scattered haphazardly throughout the structure. It was, according to the lasers shining at it from the RIL-FIJ-DOQ, perhaps a kilometre away, and it had just appeared out of nowhere.

  No foam, a voice in Marc’s head kept repeating. That means whoever is on that ship doesn’t perceive any threat from the snarks in netherspace. Maybe they have a peace treaty.

  “That,” Kara said, her voice shaking, “I think, is what shows up when a Gliese netherspace drive goes phut.”

  “Oh. Right,” Marc said, also fighting for calm. Fingers were crawling through his mind. It was the most intrusive feeling he’d ever experienced. “A mechanic’s mechanic. Maybe that’s why they’re looking at me.”

  “And me,” said Tatia.

  “Inside me.” Kara shuddered. “My mind.”

  The craft vanished. One moment it was examining the RIL-FIJ-DOQ with an easy arrogance, the next moment gone. You do not interest us. You are not important.

  “If it takes for ever,” Kara finally whispered, “I will find out who they are.”

  “I’m not busy for the next millennium or so,” Marc said.

  “Count me out,” Tatia said with feeling. “I intend to stay home and count my money.”

  EPILOGUE

  It was four more days before the RIL-FIJ-DOQ slid sideways into the solar system, close by Saturn. This afforded an opportunity to go take a look at the rings: offer denied. Folk just wanted to get home. And so began a series of little hops into netherspace as Tate and Nikki took the SUT ever closer to that point where Earth’s mass – or any object warping eleven-dimensional space-time – would, as Tate explained to an uneasy Tatia, cause the netherspace drive to turn itself inside out and spectacularly render itself into many, many fragments.

  Marc was idly wondering how Nikki could be so precise with her calculations when a window opened in his mind and he knew exactly how she did it, could have done it himself; and went in search of Kara. He found her in the airlock antechamber dedicated to the false memory of Douglas Leeman-Smith. Perhaps his sacrificed grandson had a family who’d be happy to inherit the items in there. Marc realised he knew nothing about Leeman-Smith’s personal life – and cared even less.

  “No Tatia?” Marc greeted her.

  Kara made a face. “With her people. Legal stuff. They want their money back. She’ll be tied up until we land.”

  Marc raised an eyebrow.

  “Not literally. Although…”

  “It’s tempting,” he finished for her. In the past couple of days they’d taken to completing each other’s sentences. It felt natural. “Guess what? Simulity. I know how to…”

  “Navigate?”

  “And you? Engineer?”

  Kara nodded. “Thought it might be the other way around. Cunning old Greenaway. Any other staff and we’d check it out. But this lot…”

  This lot. Tate, Nikki and Henk had closed ranks ever since Tse’s ultimate act of anarchic creative destruction and now barely spoke to Kara or Marc. They gave the impression they were only obeying Kara’s orders because she had control of the weapons and would use them – probably on Henk first.

  “Talking of which,” Kara said, quickly adding, “or even whom,” before Marc could, “we’d better go to the control room.”

  * * *

  Five hours later, when they were close enough for Kara to have had several long and private conversations with Greenaway – pleased but not surprised to hear from her – Kara directed Nikki and Tate to a deserted area of Tegel Galactic. Deserted, that is, except for a welcoming army: approximately two companies of GalDiv soldiers complete with medical teams and a sinister-looking ground transport with blacked-out windows.

  The RIL-FIJ-DOQ landed with the mildest of bumps. The Pilgrims went meekly into the transport, happy to be on Earth and forewarned that a period of quarantine would be necessary in case of alien bacteria.

  “You have a choice,” Kara told the RIL-FIJ-DOQ’s staff. “Go with them – or go back Up immediately. There’s an exploring contract, means you’ll be gone at least a year.”

  “Thanks so much,” Nikki said sweetly, “so kind.”

  “Best I could do.”

  “I got family,” Henk said.

  “You got dick, not on Earth,” Kara replied. “So don’t pre
tend.”

  The staff collected their personal belongings without saying goodbye. A military transport whisked them away to the far side of Tegel and a waiting explorer SUT.

  “Seems a bit unkind,” Tatia said, watching the monitor in the control room. “I mean, we were colleagues, right?” And then, “Why am I not going with the rest?”

  “Two things,” Kara said, “according to Greenaway. One, you’re much more important than the other Pilgrims. He said that while the Consort ceremony between you and Juan was legal, his estate can’t make a claim. So you’re still a wealthy woman. Two, you were in the warehouses. GalDiv need to hear your side.” She didn’t mention what her own AI had discovered about Tatia. Something that the younger woman herself didn’t know.

  Tatia was silent for a moment then looked at them, her face troubled. “Did you… did you say anything about my ‘intuition’?”

  Both Kara and Marc understood. If GalDiv suspected that Tatia was developing psi abilities, she’d be inside a laboratory faster than you could say pre-cog.

  “What intuition?” Kara asked.

  “No more than a feminine hunch or two,” Marc said, trying not to grin. “Marriage and kids will take care of that.”

  “So kind,” Tatia said, then flashed them both a warm smile. “I’ll miss you. If you’re ever in Seattle, don’t hesitate to look me up.”

  * * *

  “And how did she react?” Greenaway asked from behind his desk in the office where he’d first met Kara. It was the next day. Kara and Marc had been debriefed and de-debriefed until they’d even begun to question what they knew was the truth.