A Maze of Stars

by John Brunner

  “Yes.”

  “And we still want to know how all this hangs together with Sumbala,” Menlee added. “Since it’s from the Veiled World that they buy their starships.”

  “Yes.”

  “What with? I mean, what could anyone possibly pay that would justify selling an entire starship?” He looked and sounded confused. “I know they considered chartering one some years ago, back on Shreng”—he avoided calling it “home” this time, and Annica noticed and gave his nearer hand a grateful squeeze—“but even trading five years at Inshar for a thousand students wasn’t regarded on Yellick as a fair exchange.”

  “I didn’t know about that!” Annica exclaimed.

  “Someone mentioned it back when I was in premed … But the only currency, at least according to what I’ve been told, is information.”

  “That is correct.”

  “You’re going too fast for me,” Annica complained. “I want to know more about this impossible system that the starships come from.”

  “Not impossible,” Ship countered politely. “Just exceptional.”

  “Even so, I don’t see how in the universe you could have been persuaded to let people settle on these weird planets. Free oxygen from volcanoes? What if there were free combustibles as well, or free hydrogen drifting in—there must have been hydrogen!—and a lightning strike hit? Or, even more likely, a meteor!”

  “It was somewhat against my better judgment.”

  “Then they must have made out a hell of a good case!”

  “They did.” (But it doesn’t matter whether the case is good or bad when the humans that I’m bound to obey grow obstinate enough … Poor Stripe!)

  “Such as what?”

  “The settlers who decided this was where they wanted to be set down were human.”

  “Of course they were! You never carried aliens!”

  “You miss the point. They possessed imagination. They could see possibilities where I, conditioned by implanted data, was forbidden to.”

  “I say again: Such as what?”

  “To begin with, a means to render all three planets not merely habitable but indeed comfortable within less than a century, even though this would involve a modicum of genetic adaptation. And, secondly, a plan for the stabilization of the system so that it would remain in its existing configuration for at least several thousand years, based on an ingenious new application for a stardrive engine.”

  While Annica was recovering from her awe at hearing of people prepared to set about controlling the motions of three planets and a star, albeit a small one, Menlee exclaimed incredulously, “They saw this when you couldn’t?”

  “Yes ”

  “Why?”

  “Essentially, my instructions were to seed planets where humanity could survive indefinitely. This system is not inherently stable, especially since there are enough full-blown stars nearby to cause tidal variation in the dust cloud. Soon, by cosmic standards, the primary will accrete all the local matter including the planets.”

  “So why should they want to settle in such an unpromising environment?” Annica persisted.

  “Because they felt, in the upshot correctly, that here was the ideal location to start building starships, owing to the availability of so many heavy elements. And the establishment of communication among all the human worlds within the Arm had been assigned a high priority.”

  “Don’t tell me, let me guess,” Menlee said softly. “I bet they also pointed out that if they did go in for building starships, if things went wrong, you wouldn’t need to come back and rescue them. They could simply pack up and leave.”

  “I compliment you on your insight,” said the Ship.

  “But what impelled them, then, to sell their ships? I’d have thought they’d want to keep control! I mean, given the situation you’ve described, it sounds as though a stray planetoid falling in across the plane of the ecliptic would be enough to throw the system out of kilter, artificially stabilized or not. And if they didn’t manage to break it up before it entered the dust cloud, the shock wave from its destruction would have incalculable consequences.”

  “Exactly!”—from Annica. “If their survival depends on having an emergency escape route … What can they possibly regard as valuable enough to sell the ships they build?”

  “It’s already been mentioned.”

  “Information?”

  “Precisely.”

  “You mean”—Menlee was groping—“they’re happier with information about other planets, garnered by other people, than they would be if they went traveling themselves?”

  “Once more,” said Ship, and somehow the words were curved like a smile, “you impress me with your insight.”

  “They don’t fly any of their ships themselves?” Annica said in a disbelieving tone. “All they do is sell them?”

  “One might equally call it renting or chartering.”

  “And all they ask in exchange is to be told about other planets?”

  “In effect, although they insist on being supplied with the maximum possible quantity of extremely detailed information. By the way, Annica, you were wondering why the Sumbalans have not made direct contact with Shreng. The reason is simple: They haven’t yet been instructed to collect data from that far away in that direction.”

  “Was this a policy decision from the very start?”

  “Indeed.”

  “But what in all of space could impel them to—? Ah! Is it because they’re aware that eventually they’re bound to be driven away and need to know where to head for?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Only something like?”

  “Their mental processes are developing along a different and rather interesting line, about which I find I am not allowed to go into detail … You’ll have to put up with these doubtless infuriating dead ends, I’m afraid. Some day”—am I allowed to say this? Yes, apparently. Hmm! Interesting!—“I may run across somebody capable of sorting out the mess in my circuits, though not on this trip, I’m sure. Would you care to wish me luck … ? Yes? Thank you. Now it might make sense if you dined and retired. I’m approaching the tachyonic entry zone.”

  “Just a second!” Menlee said, raising a hand. “I want to know one more thing. If these people—the ones from the Veiled World … Say, what do they call themselves?”

  “The Shipwrights.”

  “That’s one of the most archaic words I ever heard!”

  “Yes, it does hark back to a very ancient culture … You were going to ask a question.”

  “What I want to know is, if they don’t fly their ships themselves, how did they let other planets know they were available? They can’t have advertised!”

  “Not unless they’ve figured out how to transmit messages through tachyon space,” Annica agreed. “And since even on Shreng we haven’t solved that one, I don’t suppose anybody would be listening.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t worked it out,” Ship said. “You mean—? Oh!” Menlee sounded astonished at his own obtuseness. “You mean they sent out automatic ships, like you?”

  “One ship,” came the judicious reply. “And not by any means ‘like me’—alas!” (Can I also say this? Yes, I can! Well, I said something very similar before …) “If I had other ships to keep me company, I’d be extremely glad … But theirs was adequate for its purpose. All it had to do was visit the nearest systems in turn, announce what the Shipwrights were offering, and inquire whether their inhabitants were prepared to close a deal. Naturally, most of them were taken completely by surprise and asked for time to consider, preferring to postpone a decision until the automatic ship came back, which might not be for decades.

  “The exception was Sumbala. The people there accepted at once. Theirs is one of the more fortunate planets, as hospitable in its different way as Shreng or Yellick. Moreover, its folk descend from a group of highly imaginative ancestors. Not themselves unusually inventive, they display a great talent for devising new applicatio
ns of what’s already to hand. You might describe them by saying that they would rather review the familiar than search for a novelty, but that scarcely anyone else would prove capable of exploiting the known in such a novel way.”

  Ship’s listeners were following with rapt attention. At this point Annica ventured, “Have you told us about an example of that? I recall you saying how much the varied means of transport used by tourists from a ship of theirs impressed the little girl on Trevithra.”

  “A perfect case in point. Sumbalans did not originate the devices I referred to, but adopted them in the conviction, shortly proved correct, that they would prove a lure for tourists.”

  Poor Stripe!

  And continued: “Being people of that stamp, they were prepared to gamble on the Shipwrights’ honesty and good faith. In the latter’s turn, they were pleased to find a culture willing to act, so to say, as their agents. The arrangement proved very successful.”

  “Do they supply only Sumbala?” Menlee demanded.

  “Naturally not. At first Sumbala took the entire output of starships, but the time inevitably came when the Veiled World wanted data from other regions. Now there are, or very soon will be, other planets performing a similar task in all directions outward from the dust cloud. It’s because the Sumbalans hope to earn the right to more ships that they recently contacted Yellick, Trevithra, and other worlds beyond their previous volume of influence.”

  “Are they,” Annica asked shrewdly, “at risk of thinking of the ships as their own and neglecting to supply the Shipwrights with a proper amount of information because there’s so much profit to be made from tourism?”

  “That’s true to some extent, but only over short distances. Advances in biology—plans for new inventions—works of art—these are the commodities worth trading. And, of course, new philosophies.”

  “Are there any?” Menlee countered cynically. “Surely by now we humans must have come to all the conclusions we’re capable of concerning the nature of the universe and our place in it.”

  Annica rounded on him. “Menlee, for shame! To start with, what about our contacts with alien life? Ship told us about that world where people are in symbiosis with the native life-forms and due to develop wonderful new ideas. And weren’t we just told that the mental processes of the Shipwrights are becoming different from ours, even though they settled in a lifeless system?”

  “Lifeless but extraordinary, don’t you think?” Menlee muttered, passing a hand across his brow. “However that may be, I apologize. I spoke without thinking. You’re absolutely right, especially about contact with aliens.”

  “As it happens,” Ship intervened, “just beyond the volume with which Shreng has contact via Yellick, there should by now be an apposite example. May I serve your food? Or do you wish me to delay my entry to tachyon space?”

  “I’m not really hungry, but … Okay. Annica?”

  “Yes, okay.”

  Throughout their meal they kept reverting to the subject of the Veiled World, trying to account for so improbable a system, coming at last to the conclusion that it must have resulted from the emergence of a strange attractor in the chaotic turbulence of the dust cloud.

  At no point did they appeal directly to Ship, preferring their own speculations. And then they duly went to bed, and sleep.

  Time for no time.

  * * *

  I DON’T NEED POWERS OF PREDICTION TO REALIZE THAT THE Veiled World is where these two will decide to quit me. lean read it in the pheromones they emit each time it’s mentioned, almost as though they’re saying, “It would be worth leaving home to live in the strangest place of all!”

  Of course the Shipwrights will pick their brains down to the cellular level, and then their bodies, but I’m sure no warning from me would change their minds.

  At least, though, it was a long way from here and Ship could look forward to their company a good while yet.

  I wish, though, they hadn’t led me to discover that ban on displaying images from my first sweep. I still can’t tell whether I am handicapped or—there’s no term so I’ll have to invent one— “plandicapped”!

  * * *

  SOME TIME LATER:

  “I feel disappointed,” Annica announced as she and Menlee were concluding yet another of the delicious and infinitely varied meals Ship could provide prior to sleeping away yet another tachyonic transit.

  “By the food?” came the soft inquiry from the air. “So far I am still attempting to avoid repetition, but if there is anything you would especially like, something familiar from Shreng, perhaps—”

  “No, no! The food is fascinating, a real adventure! More of an adventure than this trip, in a way!”

  Ship waited. Menlee’s eyes were on Annica’s face, trying to read her expression. He said at length, “Yes, I agree. I was expecting something more—more exotic on the planets we’ve visited since Yellick. Back home”—they could use the term now without it hurting—“I used to chat with foreign students, and they made their worlds sound tremendously different from ours. Now we’ve seen them, and what strikes me is not the contrasts but the resemblances.”

  “Me too!” Annica concurred. “Although we’ve seen some remarkable sights—mountains, cataracts, oceans, forests— people’s lives seem almost identical to what I’m accustomed to. They have similar technology, their cities are laid out in similar patterns, they even dress more or less the same. There are differences, but they’re minor. Is this because they’re all in contact with Yellick and Shreng?”

  “Or because they were all settled about the same time?” Menlee offered.

  “Surely that can’t be the reason,” Annica objected. “Not when you compare them with Klepsit or Trevithra, which sound as though they’re about as far apart as they could well be. Ship?”

  “You’re both partly right,” came the soft reply. “A more important factor is that the first settlers on all of them constituted a homogeneous group among my original complement. They were neither extremely eager to leave me and start homesteading their new planet, nor—”

  “Excuse me.” Annica was blinking. “Start what?”

  “I should be the one to apologize,” Ship countered. “I inadvertently used a very ancient term, which I realize you may not have run across even in a history course. Let me rephrase what I was going to say.

  “They were neither extremely eager to be set down on a new world nor excessively choosy about what kind of world it would be. As it happens, this particular group of systems must have formed from an exceptionally uniform dust cloud, so that they all have pretty much the same composition, and into the bargain they also constitute one of the rare clusters known as Arrhenian. That word is also rare, but I imagine you may recognize it.”

  Annica hesitated. Abruptly Menlee snapped his fingers. “Ah, yes! Self-replicating molecules do occasionally evolve in space, don’t they? And if they drift down to a planet, they can seed it, like the spores you sow. Instead of finding extremely different life-forms on each separate planet, therefore—”

  “They’re recognizably related!” Annica broke in. “Yes, it comes back to me now. But why Arrhenian?”

  “After a legendary savant on the birthworld who taught that life had only arisen once and its spores had been carried from star to star by radiation pressure. Ironically he was dead and almost forgotten except by specialists before any real-world cases were discovered. On more than ninety percent of the planets where life exists it arose independently, but Arrhenian clusters are known, and we’ve been traversing one of them.”

  “Which must have meant that this—this group of your passengers felt very pleased with their good fortune,” Menlee suggested. “Those who landed on Shreng and Yellick, in particular.”

  The air seemed to darken, though there was no visible reduction in the former light level.

  “Not so much those who chose the next planet on my schedule,” Ship sighed.

  “One of your—the failures?” Annica inquired. />
  “Yes. Not even one for which a brighter future may be hoped.”

  “Have ships from Yellick been there?” Menlee asked.

  “No, though a Sumbalan one has. We are approaching a volume where there are few attractive suns. But for the Shipwrights’ insistence, even the Sumbalans might well have postponed their exploration of it for a few more decades. There are other, more promising directions. Of course, since the Sumbalans are no longer the Shipwrights’ sole clients, some of them are being explored now, or will be shortly.”

  Annica pondered. “Are there already any cases where a failed world has been colonized a second time by people better equipped to cope with the environment?”

  “How could that happen?” Menlee demanded. “Surely none of the colony worlds can possibly have attained a higher level of technology than what’s represented by Ship! It’s the product of research and development by a whole galaxy!”

  “Correction,” Ship said mildly. “Not a whole galaxy—just a few thousand systems in regular contact. But you’re right in principle. It would have been impossible to build me with the resources of only a handful of planets, and those comparatively underpopulated. But in reply to your question, Annica: So far as I can tell you, the answer is no.”

  “You mean it won’t ever happen, or it hasn’t happened yet?”

  “If it has already happened, I’ve not yet seen evidence. Whether it will happen later, I can’t say.”

  “Your instructions again?” Annica said sourly, rising from the table.

  “My instructions again.”

  “I suppose there’s some kind of underlying consistency, but it baffles me… You know, I don’t much like the idea of visiting a failed world.”

  “You’re welcome to sleep through the stopover. Or I can arrange for you to disregard it.”

  “No ...” Glancing at Menlee, she bit her lip. “No, I guess I ought to see everything there is to see.”

  Menlee caught her hand and gave it an approving squeeze. “If it’s any comfort,” Ship said, making the table and the empty dishes disappear, “the world after next should be alien enough to satisfy your appetite for strangeness.”