Analog SFF, January-February 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  When I looked up again, the Trader had become a living nightmare.

  Four of his legs were raised high and angled toward the tyger's chest, their leading halves narrowed and hardened into organic swords. His entire body radiated tension and deadliness. For the first time, I saw a Tsf gondola clearly. It wasn't the blubbery, octopus-like head I'd imagined but more like a purple wrecking ball with crocodile skin, and had at least five ugly mouths, some vertical and others horizontal, one with three-inch fangs. My patient began making a noise like the keening of a housecat in terrible distress. Her body kept brightening and dimming a little, but didn't fade to mist. Something about the contact blocked her abilities.

  God knows how I did it. I wasn't aware of making any particular effort although I heard myself grunt, but I was on my feet, grabbing one of Deal's improvised sword-arms, not too near the tip. Might as well have been trying to pull down a bolted-in steel beam. Could've done chin-ups on the damn thing had I the strength.

  "Wait!” I panted. “She doesn't mean ... harm.” My voice was probably too weak to be audible even without the keening, but Diana would get my point across.

  Using a spare leg, the Trader gently pushed me away. “You are unwell and thus confused."

  "No. You promised. Not to underestimate me. Look. Even now. She's keeping her claws in."

  In the background, Trader-joe sounded like a frantic chicken except clicking not clucking.

  Deal lowered his blades very slightly. “This much is true. And unexplained. If she means no ill, why did she cut you?"

  "Didn't mean to. See her fur? Not even an inch thick. I think she was only trying to ... groom me. Bet she got interested in me—” I had to pause to catch my breath. “—because I'm the closest thing ... she's seen to one of her own people. In a while. Damn. I'm not being clear. She's only a ... toddler, Deal, barely more than a baby. Still drools. Can't use a potty."

  "An astonishing theory, but experience contradicts it. Disabling our primary controller cannot have been accidental. Our safeguards are such that no fledgling could have disabled them. And you cannot believe that her finding our control center was coincidental."

  "Why not? On my planet, unlikely accidents ... happen all the time. But maybe something about your DM ... or the place where you keep it ... attracted her. Besides, you offered proof she's immature."

  "I did not."

  "You said the controls in the spaceship ... where you found her ... were set too high for her to reach. Without jumping. Word to the wise. Her parents may be ... on the large side."

  Deal's swords stayed just as sharp, but some of the tension went out of him. “You raise reasonable doubts. So now I am sorry, but she is too dangerous to release, yet cannot be constrained by any means known to us."

  Without warning, my vision blurred and the hallway seemed to dim. Bad news. It was clear what Deal had meant: he might feel regretful, but was still planning to kill my patient. It was up to me to save her, and I had a good idea how. But now I was running out of time....

  I took as deep a breath as I could and willed the darkness away. “We can confine her. Can't you see? She'd fade out now if she could. All you have to do is hold her until..."

  To my horror, everything went black and I felt myself falling. “Diana. The robot. Tell him.” I wasn't sure I'd gotten the words out. I prayed I had and that Diana had enough bells or whistles to understand. Then I was gone.

  * * * *

  Clouds drifted high above me when I opened my eyes, and a waterfall roar tickled my ears. Yes. I was in my stateroom, lying on my back, warm, comfortable, and feeling blissfully light. Sleepily, I glanced down at my body. The smartsuit was whole and obviously working. My skin beneath felt a little tight where I'd been cut, but pain free. I tugged on the valence zipper, opening the fabric just far enough to see the uppermost part of my wounds. The separated skin had been glued together. Nice.

  Then memory flooded in and my heart seemed to lurch.

  Deal's question seemed to come from nowhere. “How the heck did you know?"

  "Deal-of-ten-lifetimes? I recognize your—the voice your translator uses for you.” Which was obviously working again since “heck” has gone the way of the stegosaur. “And I hear your clicks so you must be in here, but I don't see you."

  The Trader seemed to step right out of the landscape. “My bad. I've been here so long and kept so still, the controller blended me into the virtuality."

  "Oh. How's my client? The striped one?"

  "Most excellent. Back in her room and we are providing her appropriate care. But how did you know the robot would restrain her temporal mass-shifting abilities?"

  Relief is such an underappreciated emotion. My tyger was alive! Grinning from eyebrow to eyebrow, I opened my mouth to ask what the hell “temporal mass-shifting” meant but then thought better of it. It was time to start working for my own species. Seemed reasonable to expect the Traders to pay me more if they respected me more. Remuneration commensurate with reputation, as Diana might've phrased it. So I needed some pondering time.

  "If you don't mind,” I said, levering myself off the couch. “I'll tell you after a short visit to the bathroom."

  "Be my guest, which you are."

  Felt a bit light-headed but otherwise fine as I walked past Deal, and moving must've oiled my brain-cells because I had my answer before I'd reached the bathroom doorway. Deal's people figured that the tygers possessed some extra-dimensional aspect that would allow them to withdraw their own substance from their future selves and concentrate it in the present moment. Then, when they'd caught up to that future, their bodies attenuated enough to move through solids. In a weird way, I suppose they could be considered time-travelers. Or time-borrowers. Handy talent if you make your living by stalking and pouncing. And ... yes! Maybe it even explained why my tyger cub got left behind.

  I flushed the Earth-style toilet for realism, although I doubted Deal could hear it over the waterfall noise, and returned to the couch.

  "How?” Deal prompted, in case I'd forgotten the question.

  "Nothing to it. Once I realized that my patient was a toddler, the robot's role became obvious.” Time to make hindsight and guesswork look like brilliance. “Here's what I think happened: my client was traveling with only one adult. When the spaceship became disabled, the grownup had to use his or her time-phasing ability to seek help.” How, I wondered, does a disembodied body move itself? “Are you with me so far?"

  "I have not departed. How could this person seek help?"

  Improvise, Al, improvise. “I'm thinking an adult, but not a child, could move their entire bodies back through their timeline to the planet they left from. Or remain ... nebulous long enough to reach a civilized world."

  "Possibly. Or the adult might find another computer-controlled starship since these beings may indeed be cyber-tropic, as our master controller learned to our regret. But please explain your understanding of the robot."

  Good thing he didn't ask me to explain “cyber-tropic.” “Easy. If you had to abandon a child, even temporarily, wouldn't you make sure she was fed and kept clean? And if that child could walk through walls into vacuum and get lost, or killed after the mass-exchange thing wore off, wouldn't you make sure she'd stay put? I'd say you underestimated that robot far more than you underestimated me. And I'll bet momma or pappa is going to show up here when they find baby gone—uh, presuming you posted a star map in their spaceship showing where you took her?"

  "Of course we did. And it may enhance trade when they learn we have not slaughtered their progeny. Most excellently reasoned."

  "There's more,” I said. “You told me my patient didn't start her vanishing act until recently. Isn't that when the robot began losing power?"

  "So simple! Yet we failed to dig it. Alien doctor, you are a wonder."

  I studied him for a moment. “You're not angry any more about losing that bet?"

  "I might be bummed out if I hadn't placed a whopping new wager on your conti
nued success before the odds changed. Thanks to you, I am now glutted with exchange credit."

  "Look, maybe it's just the translator, but you don't sound all that happy."

  "That is because I must give you some sad news."

  Uh-oh. “Tell me."

  "When we found you, you were near exsanguination and required far more blood than your body could hustle up. Our medics took samples and gave you a transfixion."

  "You mean transfusion."

  "How are hyper-nuclear processes involved in this?"

  "Never mind, go on."

  "I regret to report that your blood has been severely contaminated. We believe your patient was the disease vector although her claws are currently free of the contaminant.” Deal's body practically drooped. “We dared not attempt to rid you of the infection because the organisms involved, which appear to be synthetic, are unknown to us. Also, samples were unaffected by our finest antibiotics and antivirals. We fear disastrous consequences for your health in the near future and suggest you hasten back to your own medics, who may be of more assistance. Again, my most sincere regrets. It has been an unexpected pleasure knowing you, and quite profitable. Please have a good death, and I must congratulate you again. Your successes have been phenomenal. As you people say ‘two out of three ain't bad.’”

  This relief thing, I could get addicted. Keeping a straight face I said, “Actually, three out of three is better."

  "You understand your third patient's needs? You blow me away. In fact, you qualify for whatever is the grandest compliment among humans. I am asking my DM to search out the appropriate phrase."

  "Can't wait to hear it."

  "So what is your solution to the final problem?"

  Okay Al, I told myself, grab every inch of credit you can steal and pretend your victories weren't part luck, part Trader insight, and the rest Diana's doing. “Solution indeed. As it happens, we've got tiny creatures back home with a strong resemblance to your flat guy. If the similarity means anything, here's how you fix it: just add water."

  "I don't understand. We found it in an atmosphere devoid of moisture."

  "That's the point. You described its starship as ‘trashed,’ right? On Earth, the miniature look-alikes go into a special dormant mode when the environment turns hostile. They dry up, and in that state they can endure almost anything. I bet the DM on Mr. Flat's inter-galaxy cruiser dehydrated the vessel after the accident to save its life. So hydrate the poor fellow, but slowly in case I'm wrong.

  I laughed. “And don't worry about my blood. I've got a condition called leukopenia, which means my bone marrow can't make enough white blood cells to fight off infection, and the disease, as my doctors put it, hasn't responded to conventional treatments. So those little biomechanical bugs you found in my blood are all that's keeping me alive—them and an unpleasant amount of clean living."

  "Cool. I'm pleased as punch. As to patient three, I have relayed your instructions and technicians are already following them. I am delighted to report that patient three already appears to be inflating. And I have garnered that ultimate human statement of admiration: Doctor, you are the bomb."

  I stood near the airlock and fidgeted. Every Tsf I'd met, and many I hadn't, waited to see me off, and no one had brought up the delicate subject of remuneration. I wasn't even sure what to ask for or how. A crazy idea had gotten into my head and, like a bad houseguest, wouldn't leave.

  Perhaps Deal read my mind. “Before you depart in glory, Doctor, have you decided on your fee or will you cling to Earth's initial bargain of simple trade goods?"

  Oh hell, everyone said the Tsf were dead honest. “I'm not sure because I don't know how much I've earned or how much the things I want are worth."

  "The solution is simple. Tell us what you want and we will assess their value against your performed services. I suggest you not be penny wise and Euro foolish as your saying goes."

  "Okay. Gravity control, as you suggested?"

  "Done. That technique plus the original trade goods still leaves us mucho in your debt due to the unprecedented opportunities you've opened up."

  "Really?” I took a breath. Shoot for the stars, Al. “Then I've got a big one: faster-than-light propulsion."

  He waved a leg. “Too big. FTL entails not only technology but astrophysical information still unknown to human science. And it involves a small risk to us. Eventually your kind may become trading competition."

  "I understand.” It had been so much to ask for that I was surprised at feeling a pang of disappointment. How greedy could I be? Wasn't the secret of generated gravity enough for a day's work? And the thought of someone in my soft field bringing home the hard-science bacon tickled me immensely.

  "But your surplus,” Deal continued, “will make a handsome down payment."

  "What?"

  "Should you choose to earn the balance, we have a proposition. We will set up a clinic with various controllable environments, provide you a staff of various useful beings, and bring you only the most interesting patients. Certainly, you can treat your human patients there. If you do a fraction as well as you did here, your species will soon be flying high and fast."

  "You plan to add my services to your ... trading portfolio?"

  "Right on."

  A fantastic offer, a thrilling offer. But I saw a personal pitfall ahead that could make me one miserable shrink, namely helping the human race at the cost of losing my family. “Where,” I asked slowly, “would this clinic be located? Could I bring my wife and son along, or at least have them visit frequently?"

  "They could visit with ease. Why not set it up on Earth near your residence to maximize your convenience? Does the proposition appeal?"

  Psychiatrist to the stars.

  "Appeal? My God, yes.” I was flying so high and fast myself that I forgot the one cautionary note about dealing with Traders: make sure you understand every detail of a transaction. I didn't ask what Deal meant by “staff of useful beings” and the thought of my neighbors’ reactions to such an institution on their turf never crossed my mind. But I wouldn't discover my mistakes this day.

  I smiled. “I can't promise anything close to this success rate, but I'd love to try."

  "Then this could well be the start of a symbiotic friendship."

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  Science Fact: NEPTUNE, NEPTUNE, NEPTUNE ... BUT NOT NEPTUNE by Kevin Walsh

  We now know of many extrasolar planets, but we actually know very few....

  We are now at the beginning of a new era in the exploration of the solar neighborhood, the part of the galaxy reasonably close to the Sun, say within 100 parsecs or so. The discovery of new worlds orbiting stars in this region has revolutionized our understanding of the evolution of our own solar system. Stars like HD69830 have become almost household names....

  But they haven't really, have they? Outside of a small, specialist group actually working in the field of extrasolar planetary exploration, there would be few who could name a single extrasolar planet, let alone discuss its characteristics. Partly this is because extrasolar planetary exploration is a new field. As a result, the information required to obtain a straightforward synthesis of knowledge about a particular planet is scattered across the scientific literature and is often fairly impenetrable except to working scientists. Another reason is nomenclature. Often, stars with extrasolar planets are too faint to be among those bright stars that were given names long ago—bright stars like Sirius, for instance. They are also often too faint to have been designated more recently using the Bayer-Flamsteed system—using this convention, Sirius is called Alpha Canis Majoris. Instead, these stars usually have snappy monikers like HD69830, which doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Even worse, their planets are termed HD69830b, HD69830c, and so on (for historical reasons, there is no HD69830a). Thus what we have here is an image problem: fascinating new worlds have been given really boring names. This is intentional. Long ago, the International Astronomical Union decided that objects o
utside of the solar system would not be named, partly because there are just so many of them. This strategy is understandable but makes the new solar systems hard to remember, as well as being, shall we say, lacking in star quality.

  Take the HD69830 system, for instance. In 2005, Christophe Lovis of the Geneva Observatory and his collaborators announced that HD69830 had three Neptune-sized planets in orbit around it. The masses of the planets of HD69830 range from about 10 to about 20 times the mass of the Earth, or about the same size as Neptune (17 Earth masses) and Uranus (15 Earth masses). This was a groundbreaking discovery partly because of the quality and sensitivity of the observations, but also because it implied that multiple Neptune-sized objects exist in other solar systems, just like in our own. Most previous work had found extrasolar planets that were considerably larger, often more massive than Jupiter, which at about 300 Earth masses is much bigger than Neptune. Moreover, despite the difficulty of finding and observing these new worlds and the meager observations that have been taken to date, we are able to deduce a surprising amount about the HD69830 system, thanks to numerical simulations of planetary formation and evolution, a technique that is helping us unravel the history of stars in the solar neighborhood.

  * * * *

  The neighborhood

  Like the gods, the stars are known by many names, and HD69830 is no exception. The prefix “HD” refers to the Henry Draper star catalogue, a list of all stars down to about 10 times dimmer than can be seen with the naked eye under ideal conditions. HD69830 is also called Gliese 302 in the Gliese catalogue of nearby stars, BD-12 2249 in the massive Bonner Durchmusterung, and HR 3259 in the Harvard Revised catalogue of bright stars. It is quite bright as stars go, of visual magnitude 5.95, although bright is a relative term and most people would have difficulty seeing it without a pair of binoculars, even in the dark sky of a wilderness area. It is a star of above-average mass, only slightly cooler than the Sun and about 60% of its luminosity. Like most stars of this type, estimates of its age vary: it is often difficult to assign a precise age to a star that, like our Sun, is on the very slow climb toward red giant status and has few distinguishing features that tell us exactly how long it has been doing so. One recent paper gave a range of 0.6 to 4.7 billion years, so it is probably younger than the Sun, whose age of 4.6 billion years is well determined by radioisotope dating techniques. A likely age for HD69830 is about two billion years.