by Alex Kings
Yilva looked up at him, wide-eyed. “Oh, uh. I don't know. I didn't really have any plans beyond getting away.” She paused for a moment, then said, “Yeah, Tethya will be fine. I'm good with Tethya.”
“Good. While we're en-route, I want you to record everything you remember from your little adventure. I'll have someone take you to temporary quarters while we're travelling.”
“Sure,” she said.
Hanson led them out of the ready-room. The techs led Yilva to her quarters, and Hanson and Lanik walked through into the CIC.
“Plot a course towards Tethya,” he ordered.
“Yessir,” said Fermi, clicking away at his console.
Lanik worked away quietly at his console. People may die, he'd said. Corporal Stenberg was in the service, but nevertheless – if Hanson had followed regulations, he'd still be alive.
A few minutes later, Fermi said, “Jump calculations are complete, sir.”
“Engage,” said Hanson
Lieutenant Miller spoke into her console, “Prepare for jump. All hands, prepare for jump in five … four … three … two … one.”
The view of the planet on the display suddenly rippled away, pushed to the side and distorted by an expanding wormhole. When it reached full size, the wormhole mouth shot towards them, encompassing everything. Hanson felt the tidal forces, first trying to compress his insides, then trying to pull them outwards. The bulkheads creaked under the forces. This was entirely normal; the forces were well within their tolerance.
Then it was over. A new view of deep space showed on the display, some eight lightyears away.
It would take a little over twenty minutes for the jump engines to charge again. In total, Tethya was about ten jumps, or three hours, away.
Chapter 6: Tethya
Hanson was sitting in his ready-room putting the final details on his report when Miller's voice came over the comm: “We're about to make the last jump to Tethya, sir.”
“Understood,” said Hanson. “Whenever you're ready, Lieutenant.” He scrolled up his report until he came to the list of names Yilva had given him:
Project Renaissance
Hive Shrike
Srak
Blanks
Bell
Forge
All seemed meaningless. Over the shipwide comms came Miller's countdown to jump, followed by the familiar compression-expansion pull. Hanson sighed, shrunk his tablet down, and headed out onto the CIC.
One of the displays at the command station was almost filled with a rich blue sphere against the starfield. Tethya – the ocean planet. Hundreds of ships from half a dozen different races orbited it at varying distances. Further away, beyond the jump perimeter, space was filled with continuous small flashes as ships jumped in and out from the system.
As the Dauntless approached the planet, they passed another ship: A huge elongated ovoid, six miles long and two miles in diameter in the middle. Its surface appeared entirely smooth, the same rich blue as the planet, interrupted only by a set of three gently bulging disks near the front. It dwarfed them. It would even dwarf the biggest human dreadnoughts.
It was a Tethyan battleship: The most advanced and most powerful ship in known space, and a clear warning to all other species in the system. You are welcome here, but do battle elsewhere.
“We've been assigned a docking berth in Tethya City,” reported Dunn. “And IL have been notified. They'll be sending out a repair team in six hours.”
“Very good,” said Hanson. “Take her in.”
The Dauntless flew in towards the planet, past the orbital docking bays for larger vessels, and dipped into Tethya's atmosphere.
Below, the immense ocean surface stretched out away from them in every direction. And on it, a glimmering silver fractal shape floated. Tethya City. A floating structure a hundred miles across, populated with almost every known species. Some people called it the capital of the galaxy.
The Tethyans had been in space for close to 80,000 years. They were the oldest living species in the known galaxy. Long before humanity ever made it into space, the Tethyans had built Tethya City as a neutral city for other species to live together. They called it promoting galactic harmony. The Tethyans themselves lived in the ocean.
Automated systems guided the Dauntless into one of the docking berths near the city's edge, where effector fields like blue, translucent ribbons held the ship firm, and a docking tube extended to connect to the hull with a gentle thump. Effector fields were one of many technologies that humans had been unable to master, or even make sense of. Indeed, the only species to use them were the Tethyans and the Albascene, who had been given a primitive version as a gift.
“Right,” said Hanson. “I want us to be away from here in the next 12 hours. Miller, could you guide the repair team when they get here?”
“Aye, sir.”
When everything was sorted, Hanson went down to find Yilva. At the door to her new quarters, she let him in. He found her with her face pressed up against the window. She looked more like a tourist than someone who'd just escaped a Glaber hunter. Outside, the glistening, ornate buildings of the city glowed in the sunlight.
“You are actually allowed outside, you know,” he said.
“I've only been to Tethya once,” said Yilva as if she hadn't heard him. “So cool! You know they grow the buildings like they grow their ships? Sort of like coral crossed with carbon nanotubes and –” Her tail twitched as if she'd only just realised what he'd said. “Oh, wow. Yeah, outside! Good idea!”
“Do you know what you're going to do now?” asked Hanson.
Yilva shrugged quickly, and her tail drooped. “Still indentured for five years. My employers have an office here. It … they'll take me in, I'm sure. Yeah.”
“Indentured?” said Hanson. He frowned.
“Family obligation,” Yilva explained. “It's nothing, really. Guaranteed work! I'm lucky really. Not even a servant.” She clicked her fingers against the glass.
Indentured work because of a family obligation. There was a better word for that, Hanson thought: Slavery. It was common enough knowledge – the Petaurs were indebted to the Albascene and worked for them. He didn't have to like it, though.
“Will your … employers,” Hanson began, hating the sound on his tongue, “be happy with you reappearing like this?”
Yilva was silent for a moment. “Yeah. Yeah, why not? Maybe. I'll just have to see.” Then, in a single quick motion, she swept away from the window, and hung upside-down from a fixture in the ceiling. She grinned with excitement again. “I might go to the Tethya Museum before I tell them I'm back. That'll be fun!” She paused, tilted her head. “Are all your crew doing military stuff? Do any of them want to come with me??
Hanson was a little taken aback. “I've got some on leave. You could ask them, I suppose.”
“Yeah, okay.” She moved towards the door, then stopped, and turned back to him. “What about you?”
Hanson stared at her for a second. His meeting with Admiral Chang wouldn't be for another hour or so. Nothing else required him to be onboard. And it might be better to keep an eye on Yilva rather than leave her unescorted. “Alright,” he said at last. “I can spare some time.”
Yilva gave him a broad grin. “Oh, wow. Great!”
Chapter 7: The Spine
To get to the museum, they took one of the city's automated transport pods. The pods were roughly spherical vehicles, mostly window so the occupants could see out but no-one could see in, and covered with ornate decorations. They hung from an inch-wide silvery rail using cherry-red effector fields.
On the way, Yilva kept finding she had more to say about the museum: “You know it's the largest collection of Ancient artefacts in the known galaxy? The Tethyans have been collecting this stuff for thousands of years! Everything that's safe goes here. I didn't get to go last time I was here. I was only being transferred and I had to stay in the docking area. But, yeah, it's so great!”
Hanson nodded and
paid attention as much as he could. The upcoming meeting with the admiral wasn't something he was looking forward to at all. Still, he had to be impressed when Yilva pointed out a window at something that was happening:
First, it seemed like the surface of the ocean was bulging outwards. Then, a moment later, something emerged. It looked like a shimmering island of blue crystal – then he realised it was a Tethyan battleship. Sheets of water rushed off its surface as it pulled itself up. This close, it seemed impossibly large. Its smooth hull gave no indication of all the weaponry hidden within. At last, it was fully in the air, hovering in defiance of gravity. Then, without warning, it hurtled upwards.
“They start out this big,” Yilva told him, holding her thumb and finger less than an inch apart, and grinned. “If I couldn't be an Ancient, I'd want to be a Tethyan.” The thought seemed to throw her off balance, and she looked out the window silently for a moment.
The museum – labelled as Galactic Repository in Isk, along with several other languages Hanson didn't know – was a dome covered in spires that resembled something between coral and gnarled trees.
Inside, the foyer floor was crisscrossed by canals a metre or so wide. Creatures of every civilised species moved back and forth across the foyer. Whenever they got to a canal, a flat bridge of smart matter quickly extended so they could cross without breaking stride.
Hanson paused to take in the scene. Corridors stretched away in several directions.
“Hello, visitors,” said a soft, melodic voice in Isk. “Are you looking for anything in particular?” The voice came from a Tethyan floating languidly in the canal beside them. It resembled a squid with six tentacles, but covered in a jointed golden-brown exoskeleton. A set of six electric blue compound eyes looked out from between the tentacles – Hanson couldn't read any expression in those things. A biotech voice box strapped to its body translated its natural optical language into Isk.
“I think we're good, thank you,” said Hanson.
Yilva grinned at it. “Yep! I think I know the way, Isaut!”
The Tethyan's tentacles moved back and forth in the water, and the bare flesh of the underside changed colours rapidly. “Of course. Welcome back, Miss Avanni.”
“You take care now,” said Yilva as the Tethyan swam off. “Bye!”
It felt a little odd, Hanson thought, to see a member of the most advanced species in the known galaxy acting as a museum guide.
When he mentioned this to Yilva, she said, “The Tethyans are old. The past is a big deal for them. Being a docent or curator is one of the most valued jobs. Well, not jobs, because they don't have jobs … more like avocations. But anyway, that's how they see it. Helping to educate the younger races about our shared history. They care about that.”
“I suppose military prowess is less valued when your ships can wipe the floor with every other species'.”
“This way,” Yilva said bouncily, scrambling away over a canal and down one of the corridors. Hanson, shaking his head, followed behind.
The path Yilva took was filled with objects left by the Ancients. Some were as big as a shuttle; some were so small they were placed behind a microscope. More than half were labelled “unknown purpose.” They had odd shapes – half organic-looking, half mechanical. They looked twisted and contorted, without right angles or clear designs.
The simplest of them looked a bit like a spine from a hedgehog, but pitch black. It was three feet tall, and a couple of inches wide in the middle.
“Data storage device,” Yilva read from the sign. “Estimated storage capacity of 7 exabits.” She grinned up at him. “Nobody knows how to read what's on it, though. You know some of your people keep trying to get a look at it? Your corporation, Interstellar Liners? I read they filed something like thirty requests to examine this thing. The Tethyans keep rejecting them.”
“Could your work help us read it?” Hanson asked.
Yilva snorted with laughter. “Oh, yeah! No, no way.” She saw his face and stopped immediately. “Oh, wow. Sorry. That was rude.” She looked at the spine. “But no. My work can control an Ancient ship. Maybe the ship's computers could read this, but if we don't have a ship it's pointless. Come on.” And already she was running off to the next exhibit.
“I'd have thought,” said Hanson, “after your latest escapade, you'd have had enough of Ancient technology.”
Yilva cocked her head. “Technology isn't evil. It's people … the Glaber, or whoever … misusing it. That's the problem.”
Hanson nodded. “I suppose so.”
A little while later, something beeped in his ear. It was nearly time for his meeting with the Admiral. He told Yilva.
“Oh, yeah, okay,” she said. “I'll come back to the ship with you.”
Chapter 8: Contract
“And the evidence you have for this is a datachip full of equations no-one can decipher, a mysterious human hostile who self-destructed, the word of a rogue Petaur, and a few names she remembers?” On the screen in Hanson's ready-room, Admiral Chang sat back and considered this. He had steel-grey streaks in his moustache and his thick but slowly receding hair.
“That's about the size of it, yes,” said Hanson.
“I recognise one name here. Srak is a Varanid mercenary. We can hardly take him in for questioning, can we? And Hive Shrike is Glaber organised crime.”
“Presumably the hive who were chasing Yilva.”
“Quite possibly, but what would that prove?” The admiral was silent for several seconds. Eventually, he sighed. “I can understand why you made the choices you did. And we haven't had a complaint from any of the Glaber hives, so I think we can smooth this one over. You're not looking at a court-martial, at any rate. But you lost one of your crew by breaking regulations. And as for this conspiracy theory about Ancient technology …” He spread his hands. “What am I supposed to say, James?”
“I was hoping you could investigate more,” Hanson said.
Chang shook his head. “I'm sorry. There's not enough evidence to proceed. Once your repairs are finished, you're to go back to your patrol route.”
“Sir – ”
“Captain. I think you've come out on top on this one. Don't push it.” Chang's voice took on a warning tone.
“Yes sir,” Hanson said. When the admiral had signed off, he sat staring at the blank screen for a few seconds more and drumming his fingers on the table, thinking it over.
The admiral had read Lanik's report as well as his own. Recalling this, Hanson felt a surge of annoyance. Lanik's report had almost certainly been critical. It almost felt like a betrayal.
Except it wasn't.
Hanson stifled his annoyance. His temper had got him into trouble plenty of times in the past. He knew, rationally, Lanik had done nothing wrong, hadn't betrayed him. And, really, he ought to trust his XO more.
Easier said than done.
Before he could get any further, his comm warbled. It was Lieutenant Miller. “Sir?” she said. “An Albascene just turned up at the docking bay. It wants to talk to you.”
“Bloody hell,” he said, before activating the microphone to reply: “Okay, lieutenant. I'm on my way.”
Accompanied by Miller, he found the Albascene waiting just in the room just outside the docking tube. It was strange even by the standards of aliens: Its environment suit looked like a stack of three dodecahedrons, and was about six foot high in total. Each segment rotated independently and was dotted with medal-like decorations and inscriptions in some alien alphabet. It floated a few inches off the floor on red effector fields. On the top segment, a lightly glowing red spot seemed to focus on him. He supposed that was the eye.
“Hello,” it said calmly in English. “I am Representative Olgive from the Associated Calculations and Contracts Corporation. Are you Captain James Hanson?”
“I am,” said Hanson.
“I have reason to believe you have one of our employees on board your vessel. One Yilva Vissin Avanni. Is this correct?”
So this was one of the bastards who had Petaurs enslaved. But Hanson could see no other option. “Yes,” he said. “Yilva is aboard.”
“I'm sure you had the best intentions in keeping her, but now we would like her back.” Seeing Hanson hesitate, it continued, “Here is a warrant and proof of contract.”
A small hatch opened in the middle segment of its suit, and a compact tablet slid out, held by effector fields. The tablet expanded to a reasonable size to show the warrant.
“If she wants to go with you, I won't keep her against her will,” Hanson said.
“Excuse me, but the contract is here. It is our will, not hers, that is important here.”
Hanson ignored this. “Miller, would you go and get Ms. Avanni?”
“Yes sir.” Miller swung on her heel and headed into the ship.
Hanson turned back to Olgive the Albascene. It regarded him silently. Its suit hummed, and the middle segment rotated a few degrees. Eventually, Yilva and Lieutenant Miller came out of the docking tube.
“Oh,” said Yilva when she saw it. She glanced at Hanson.
“If you don't want to …” he began.
“Oh, wow. Thank you. But it's fine. It's okay,” she said, moving to stand beside Olgive. “Everyone on your ship has been lovely! Thank you for helping me.” Her ears flopped down, and her tail trailed on the floor.
“Thank you for your co-operation,” the Albascene said. Then, speaking in Isk and turning to Yilva: “Please follow.”
It floated away down the chamber, while Yilva scrambled after it.
A man passed them, heading the other way. He had a jacket emblazoned with the IL Corp logo and was carrying a tablet under his arm. He turned and looked at the pair as they left, then jogged over to where Hanson was standing.
“Albascene!” He said. “Weird. You don't see many round here.” Then he looked past them, through the window where the ship was settled in the berth. “Yes, the SAV Dauntless. Are you the captain?”
Hanson said he was.