Miocene glanced at her own reflection. “And who are we?”
“The elite of the elite.” Washen put names to the faces, listing bonuses and promotions earned over the last millennia. “Manka is a new second-grade. Aasleen was in charge of the last engine upgrade, which came in below budget and five months early. Saluki and Westfall have won the Master’s award for duty ten times each.” She gestured at the captain beside her, saying, “And there’s Diu, of course. Already an eleventh-grade, which is astonishing. You came on board the ship—warn me if I’m wrong—as just another passenger.”
The energetic man said, “True, madam. Thank you for remembering.”
Washen grinned, then said, “And then there’s you, Madam Miocene. You are one of three Submasters with first-chair status at the Master’s table.”
The tall woman nodded, enjoying the flattery. “But don’t forget yourself, darling.”
“I never do,” Washen replied, earning a good laugh from everyone. And because nothing was more unseemly in a captain than false modesty, she admitted, “I’ve heard the rumors. I’m slated to become our newest Submaster.”
Miocene grinned, but she made no comment about any rumors.
Instead she took an enormous breath, and in a loud voice asked, “Can you smell yourselves? Can you? That’s the smell of ambition. No other scent is so tenacious, or in my mind, ever so sweet … !”
No name but the ship was necessary. Ancient and spectacular, there was nothing else that could be confused with it, and everyone on board, from the Ship’s Master to the most disreputable stowaway, was justifiably proud of their magnificent home.
The ship began as a jupiter-class world, but an unknown species had claimed it. Using its hydrogen atmosphere, they accelerated the core to a fraction of lightspeed. Then they built tunnels and compartments, plus chambers large enough to swallow small worlds. Premium hyperfibers lent strength and durability to the frame. And then, as with the leech’s plastic abode, the builders suddenly and mysteriously abandoned their creation.
Billions of years later, humans stumbled across the ship. Most of its systems were in a diagnostic mode. Human engineers woke them, making repairs where necessary. Then the best human captains were hired, and every manner of passenger was ushered aboard, the ship’s maiden voyage calling for a half-million year jaunt around the Milky Way.
Its undisputed ruler arrived a few hours later.
Accompanied by a melody of horns and angel-voiced humans, the Master strode into the room. Where other captains were disguised in civilian clothes, their leader wore a mirrored cap and uniform that suited her office, and for many reasons, her chosen body was broad and extraordinarily deep. It was status, in part. But a Master also needed bulk to give her augmented brain a suitable home, thousands of ship functions constantly monitored and adjusted, in the same unconscious way that the woman moved and breathed.
Gravity was weaker this deep inside the ship. With one vast hand skating along the ceiling, the Master deftly kept herself from bumping her head. A dozen of the low-grade captains offered greetings and hard cushions. Diu was among the supplicants, on his knees and smiling, even after she had passed.
“Thank you for coming,” said that voice that always took Washen by surprise. It was a quiet, unhurried voice, perpetually amused by whatever the radiant brown eyes were seeing. “I know you’re puzzled,” she said, “and I hope you’re concerned. So let me begin with my compelling reasons for this game, and what I intend for you.”
A handful of guards stood in the distance; Washen saw their tiny armored silhouettes as the room’s lights fell to nothing.
“The ship, please.”
A real-time projection blossomed beside the Master, channeled through her own internal systems. The spherical hull looked slick and gray. A thousand lasers were firing from the bow, aiming at comets and other hazards, Mammoth engines rooted in the stern spat out hurricanes of plasma, incrementally adjusting their course and speed. And a tiny flare on the equator meant that another starship was arriving. With new passengers, presumably.
“Now,” said the amused voice, “start peeling the onion. Please.”
In a blink, the hyperfiber hull was removed. Washen could suddenly make out the largest high-deck chambers; she knew each by name and purpose, just as she knew every important place too small to be seen. Then another few hundred kilometers of rock and water, air and hyperfiber were erased, exposing more landmarks.
“This perfect architecture.” The Master stepped closer to the shrinking projection, its glow illuminating a wide strong self-assured face—a face designed to inspire thousands of captains, and a crew numbering in the tens of millions. “In my mind, there’s been no greater epic in history. I’m not talking about this journey of ours. I mean about the astonishing task of exploring our ancient starship. Imagine the honor: To be the first living organism to step into one of these chambers, the first sentient mind in billions of years to experience their vastness, their mystery. It was a magnificent time. And I’m talking first-hand, since I was one of the leaders of the first survey team …”
It was an old, honorable boast, and her prerogative.
“We did a superlative job,” she assured. “I won’t accept any other verdict. Despite technical problems and the sheer enormity of it, we mapped more than ninety-nine percent of the ship’s interior. In fact, I was the first one to find my way through the plumbing above us, and the first to see the sublime beauty of the hydrogen sea below us …”
Washen hid a smile, thinking: A fuel tank is a fuel tank is a fuel tank.
“Here we are,” the Master announced. The projection had shrunk by a third. The fuel tank was a fist-sized cavern; the leech habitat was far too small to be seen. Then in the next moment, they were gone, another layer removed without sound or fuss. Liquid hydrogen turned into a blackish solid, and deeper still, a transparent metal. “These seas have always been the deepest features,” she commented. “Below them, there’s nothing but iron and a stew of other metals squashed under fantastic pressures.”
The ship had been reduced to a perfectly smooth black ball—the essential ingredient in a multitude of popular games.
“Until now, we knew nothing about the core.” The Master paused for a moment, allowing herself a quick grin. “Evidence shows that when the ship was built, its core was stripped of its radionuclides, probably to help cool the metals and keep them relatively stiff. We don’t know how the builders managed the trick. But there used to be narrow tunnels leading down, all reinforced with hyperfibers and energy buttresses, and all eventually crushed by time and a lack of repair.” A second pause, then she said, “Not enough room left for a single microchine to pass. Or so we’ve always believed.”
Washen felt herself breathing faster, enjoying the moment.
“There has never, ever been the feeblest hint of hidden chambers,” the Master proclaimed. “I won’t accept criticism on this matter. Every possible test was carried out. Seismic. Neutrino imaging. Even palm-of-the-hand calculations of mass and volume. Until fifty-three years ago, there was no reason to fear that our maps weren’t complete.”
A silence had engulfed the audience.
Quietly, smoothly, the Master said, “The full ship. Please.”
The iron ball was again dressed in rock and hyperfiber.
“Now the impact. Please.”
Washen stepped forward, anticipating what she would see. Fifty-three years ago, they passed through a dense swarm of comets. The captains had thrown gobs of antimatter into the largest hazards. Lasers fired without pause, evaporating trillions of tons of ice. But debris still peppered the hull, a thousand pinpricks of light dancing on its silver-gray projection, and then came a blistering white flash that dwarfed the other explosions and left the captains blinking, remembering that moment, and the shared embarrassment.
A chunk of nickel-iron had slipped through their defenses. The ship rattled with the impact, and for months afterwards, nervous passengers talke
d about little else. Even when the captains showed them all of the schematics and calculations, proving that they could have absorbed an even larger impact before anyone was in real danger … even then there were people and aliens who insisted on being afraid.
With a palpable relish, the Master said, “Now the cross section, please.”
Half of the ship evaporated. Pressure waves spread down and out from the blast site, then pulled together again at the stem, causing more damage before they bounced, and bounced back again, the diluted vibrations still detectable now, murmuring their way through the ship as well as through the captains’ own bones.
“AI analysis. Please.”
A map was laid over the cross section, every feature familiar. Save one,
“Madam,” said a sturdy voice. Miocene’s voice. “It’s an anomaly, granted. But doesn’t the feature seem rather … unlikely … ?”
“Which is why I thought it was nothing. And my trusted Al—part of my own neural net—agreed with me. This region is a change in composition. Nothing more.” She paused for a long moment, watching her captains. Then with a gracious oversized smile, she admitted, “The possibility of a hollow core has to seem ludicrous.”
Submasters and captains nodded with a ragged hopefulness.
Knowing they weren’t ordered here because of an anomaly, Washen stepped closer. How large was it? Estimates were easy to make, but the simple math created some staggering numbers.
“Ludicrous,” the Master repeated. “But then I thought back to when we were babies, barely a few thousand years old. Who would have guessed that a Jupiter-class world could become a starship like ours?”
Just the same, thought Washen: Certain proposals will always be insane.
“But madam,” said Miocene. “A chamber of those proportions would make us less massive. Assuming we know the densities of the intervening iron, of course …”
“And you’re assuming, of course, that the core is empty.” The Master grinned at her favorite officer, then at all of them. For several minutes, her expression was serene, wringing pleasure out of their confusion and ignorance.
Then she reminded everyone, “This began as someone else’s vessel. We shouldn’t forget: We don’t understand why our home was built. For all we know, it was a cargo ship. A cargo ship, and here is its hold.”
The captains shuddered at the idea.
“Imagine that something is inside this chamber. Like any cargo, it would have to be restrained. A series of strong buttressing fields might keep it from rattling around every time we adjusted our course. And naturally, if the buttressing fields were rigid enough, then they would mask whatever is down there—”
“Madam,” shouted someone, “please, what’s down there … ?”
Shouted Diu.
“A spherical object. It’s the size of Mars, but considerably more massive.” The Master grinned for a moment, then told the projection, “Please. Show them what I found.”
The image changed again. Nestled inside the great ship was a world, black as iron and slightly smaller than the chamber surrounding it. The simple possibility of such an enormous, unexpected discovery didn’t strike Washen as one revelation, but as many, coming in waves, making her gasp and shake her head as she looked at her colleagues’ faces, barely seeing any of them.
“This world has an atmosphere,” said the laughing voice, “with enough oxygen to be breathed, enough water for lakes and rivers, and all of the symptoms usually associated with a vigorous biosphere—”
“How do we know that?” Washen called out. Then, in a mild panic, “No disrespect intended, madam!”
“I haven’t gone there myself, if that’s what you’re asking.” She giggled like a child, telling them, “But after fifty years of secret work, using self-replicating drones to rebuild one of the old tunnels … after all that, I’m able to stand here and assure you that not only does this world exist, but that each of you are going to see it for yourselves …”
Washen glanced at Diu, wondering if her face wore that same wide smile.
“I have named the world, by the way. We’ll call it Marrow.” The Master winked and said, “For where blood is born, of course. And it’s reserved for you … my most talented, trustworthy friends … !”
Wonders had been accomplished in a few decades. Mole-like drones had gnawed their way through beds of nickel and iron, repairing one of the ancient tunnels; fleets of tube-cars had plunged to where the tunnel opened into the mysterious chamber, assembling a huge stockpile of supplies directly above Marrow; then a brigade of construction drones threw together the captains’ base camp—a sterile little city of dormitories, machine shops, and first-rate laboratories tucked within a transparent, airtight blister.
Washen was among the last to arrive. At the Master’s insistence, she led a cleaning detail that stayed behind, erasing every trace of the captains’ presence from the leech habitat. It was a security precaution, and it required exacting work. And some of her people considered it an insult. “We aren’t janitors,” they grumbled. To which Washen replied, “You’re right. Professionals would have finished last week.”
Diu belonged to her detail, and unlike some, the novice captain worked hard to endear himself. He was probably calculating that she would emerge from this mission as a Submaster and his benefactor. But there was nothing wrong in calculations, Washen believed—as long as the work was done, successes piled high and honors for everyone.
Only tiny, two passenger tube-cars could make the long fall to the base camp. Washen decided that Diu would provide comfortable company. He rewarded her with his life story, including how he came into the captains’ ranks. “After a few thousand years of being a wealthy passenger, I realized that I was bored.” He said it with a tone of confession, and amusement. “But you captains never look bored. Pissed, yes. And harried, usually. But that’s what attracted me to you. If only because people expect it, captains can’t help seem relentlessly, importantly busy.”
Washen had to admit, it was a unique journey into the ship’s elite.
At journey’s end, their car pulled into the first empty berth. On foot, Diu and Washen conquered the last kilometer, stepping abruptly out onto the viewing platform, and not quite standing together, peering over the edge.
A tinted airtight blister lay between them and several hundred kilometers of airless, animated space. Force fields swirled through that vacuum, creating an array of stubborn, stable buttresses. The buttresses were visible as a brilliant blue-white light that flowed from everywhere, filling the chamber. The light never seemed to weaken. Even with the blister’s protection, the glare was intense. Relentless. Eyes had to adapt—a physiological change that would take several ship-days—and even still, no one grew accustomed to the endless day.
Even inside her bedroom, windows blackened and the covers thrown over her head, a captain could feel the radiance piercing her flesh just so it could tickle her bones.
The chamber wall was blanketed with a thick mass of gray-white hyperfiber, and the wall was their ceiling, falling away on all sides until it vanished behind Marrow.
“Marrow,” Washen whispered, spellbound.
On just the sliver of the world beneath them, the captain saw a dozen active volcanoes, plus a wide lake of bubbling iron. In cooler basins, hot-water streams ran into colorful, mineral-stained lakes. Above them, water clouds were gathering into enormous thunderheads. When the land wasn’t exploding, it was a rugged shadow-less black, and the blackness wasn’t just because of the iron-choked soils. Vigorous, soot-colored vegetation basked in the endless day. And they were a blessing. From what the captains could see, the forests were acting as powerful filters, scrubbing the atmosphere until it was clean, at least to where humans, if conditioned properly, should be able to breathe, perhaps even comfortably.
“I want to get down there,” Washen confessed.
“It’s going to take time,” Diu warned, pointing over her shoulder.
Above the blister, d
ormitories and machine shops were dangling from the hyperfiber, their roofs serving as foundations. Past them, at the blister’s edge, the captains were assembling a silvery-white cylinder. It would eventually form a bridge to Marrow. There was no other way down. The buttress fields killed transports, and for many reasons, unprotected minds, eroded in an instant, and died. To beat the challenge, their best engineer, Aasleen, had designed a shaft dressed in hyperfibers, its interior shielded with ceramics and superfluids. Theories claimed that the danger ended with Marrow’s atmosphere, but just to be safe, several hundred immortal pigs and baboons were in cages, waiting to put those guesses to the test.
Washen was thinking about the baboons, and timetables.
A familiar voice broke her reverie.
“What are your impressions, darlings?”
Miocene stood behind them. In uniform, she was even more imposing, and more cold. Yet Washen summoned her best smile, greeting the mission leader, then adding, “I’m surprised. I didn’t know it would be this beautiful.”
“Is it?” The knife-edged face offered a smile. “Is there any beauty here, Diu?”
“A spartan kind of beauty,” Diu replied.
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t have any feel for aesthetics.” The Submaster smiled off into the distance. “Tell me. If this world proves harmless and beautiful, what do you think our passengers will pay for the chance to come here?”
“If it’s a little dangerous,” Washen ventured, “they would pay more.”
Miocene’s smile came closer, growing harder. “And if it’s deadly, maybe we’ll have to collapse the tunnel again. With us safely above, of course.”
“Of course,” the captains echoed.
Diu was grinning, with his face, and if possible, with his entire body.
Mirrors and antennae clung to hyperfiber, gazing at Marrow. He gestured at them, asking, “Have we seen any signs of intelligence, madam? Or artifacts of any sort?”
The Hard SF Renaissance Page 50