Strider's Galaxy

by John Grant

  The words rushed into her mind so fast that she could hardly keep up with them: IF WE FIX YOUR COMPUTER WHICH WE DO NOT THINK IS SOMETHING WE CAN DO YOU WILL STILL BE IN AN ANTIQUATED SPACE VESSEL WITH AN ANTIQUATED DRIVE UNIT FOLLOWING THE INSTRUCTIONS WHICH WE SHALL WILLINGLY GIVE YOU AS TO HOW YOU CAN REACH THE NEAREST PLANET YOU MIGHT FIND HABITABLE WHICH HAS NOT BEEN ALREADY COLONIZED, WHICH TRIP WILL TAKE YOU A TIME OF TWENTY-EIGHT OF YOUR YEARS ASSUMING YOUR SHIP IS NOT PICKED OFF BY MILITARY ACTION DURING THAT TIME AND IT ALMOST CERTAINLY WOULD BE. YOUR COMPUTER IS CAPABLE OF CONTROLLING ONLY THE TECHNOLOGY IT WAS BUILT TO CONTROL. IF WE CAN INSTALL OURSELVES IN ITS PLACE WE MAY THEN UPGRADE YOUR SHIP SO THAT IT HAS AT LEAST THE LEVEL OF TECHNOLOGY OF THOSE OF OTHER PHYSICAL SPECIES WHO POPULATE THE WONDERVALE. THIS WILL CERTAINLY BE OF CONSIDERABLE VALUE TO YOU AND YOUR CONTINUED PERSONAL SURVIVAL BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY IT MIGHT BE OF GREAT BENEFIT TO OTHERS OF THE WONDERVALE AND AESTHETICALLY TO OURSELVES WHICH IS WHY WE SO GLADLY OFFER TO YOU OUR SERVICES. BUT WE CANNOT MAKE YOU ACCEPT THOSE SERVICES.

  "Upgrade the ship?" said Strider hesitantly. "How?"

  YOUR DRIVE RESTRICTS YOU TO SUBLIGHT VELOCITIES.

  Strider and Nelson exchanged glances. They could hardly believe what they'd just heard.

  BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO MODE OF ACHIEVING TRANS-LIGHT VELOCITIES YOU ARE INCAPABLE OF AVOIDING WORMHOLES. ALSO, YOU HAVE NO DEFENSIVE WEAPONRY.

  "Yeah," said Nelson, "you talked about military action before. Is there some kind of war going on?"

  THE WONDERVALE IS A FIELD OF MANY WARS. IT IS VERY UNAESTHETIC. THIS GALAXY IS IN THE GRIP OF A TYRANNY, AND REBELLIONS ARE EVERYWHERE. WE WISH THAT THEY WOULD STOP.

  "Whose side are you on?" said Nelson suspiciously.

  WE ARE ON THE SIDE OF THE WARS' STOPPING, BECAUSE THEY OFFEND US. THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN UNTIL THE TYRANNY IS REMOVED. WE WOULD PREFER THAT THIS HAPPENED BY PERSUASION RATHER THAN WARFARE, BUT THE TYRANNY OF THE AUTARCH NALLA SHOWS NO SIGNS OF BEING OPEN TO PERSUASION.

  Again Strider saw a motion of near-light at the very periphery of her vision. This time it didn't make the small hairs at the back of her neck twitch in protest.

  "Tell us more about the upgrading of the ship," she said, waving Nelson to silence.

  WE CAN RESTORE THE SMALL MOBILE COMPUTER FOR WHOM YOU HAVE SUCH FONDNESS, CAPTAIN LEONIE STRIDER, the voice said. THAT IS A TINY MATTER FOR US. WE CAN GIVE YOU AN ARTIFICIAL MARS-STANDARD GRAVITY WHATEVER THE ACCELERATION TO WHICH YOU SUBJECT YOUR SHIP, WITHIN CERTAIN LIMITS. WE CAN PROVIDE YOU WITH MORE SOPHISTICATED ASTROGATION THAN YOUR CULTURE WILL ATTAIN IN SEVERAL THOUSAND YEARS. BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING OF ALL IS WHAT WE HAVE ALREADY SAID: WE CAN REPLACE YOUR PRIMARY DRIVE WITH ONE WHICH WILL MOVE YOU BETWEEN THE STARS WITHOUT EACH VOYAGE TAKING SEVERAL OF YOUR DECADES. THE TACHYON DRIVE CAN—

  "But there are no such things as tachyons!" said Nelson. "Shutzi Katanara proved it, way back."

  The voice fell silent.

  "At a quick guess," said Strider unhappily to the big man seated alongside her, "Shutzi was wrong. Once upon a time people proved that the Sun went round the Earth—remember?"

  THE TACHYON DRIVE, resumed the lilting voice-that-was-several-voices, CAN TAKE YOU AT TRANS-LIGHT VELOCITY WHEREVER IT IS YOU WISH TO GO. BY THE VERY NATURE OF THE TACHYON DRIVE, ANY CRAFT POWERED BY IT IS IN NO DANGER OF FALLING INTO A WORMHOLE, AS YOU DID.

  "Can it take us home?" said Strider.

  NO. WE DO NOT KNOW WHERE YOUR HOME IS. WE WOULD SUGGEST THAT YOU ACCEPT, CAPTAIN LEONIE STRIDER, THAT FROM NOW ON YOUR HOME IS THE WONDERVALE.

  #

  It was hard to recognize what the command deck of the Santa Maria had become. The screens had vanished, and in their place were devices whose physics had been explained to the human beings but proved incomprehensible even to Lan Yi. The aliens had called the devices Cross-Reality Assimilation Pods, which was perhaps an accurate description of the way in which they worked but acronymized unfortunately; Strider was damned if she was going to spend the rest of her life sticking her head into CRAPs, and renamed the things Pockets. Because using them could be like delving into a pocket—often enough, the pocket of an old garment you hadn't worn for years, so that what you found was a mixture of reminders and items you had so long forgotten that they were in effect brand-new discoveries.

  The displays of the Pockets looked from a distance as if they were straightforwardly holographic. Each Pocket—there were twelve of them, arranged in a neat curve around the front one hundred and twenty degrees of the command deck—was like a box mounted on another box. The lower box appeared to be solid, made of something resembling opaque grey plastite, although it adjusted its size automatically so that its upper surface was always at the waist-height of the user. It did so in a way that was inconvenient to watch: for fun, Leander had tried suddenly squatting down while making an observation, and had had to knock off duty for a couple of hours with a splitting headache. The top surface of this box was illuminated, displaying a constant stream of mathematical data and geometrical representations.

  The upper box was the part of the Pocket which demonstrated just how far ahead of human technology the aliens had gone. For a start, the box itself was invisible, although you were aware it was there by the fact that any of the images it contained were cut off along fixed boundaries. Within this box you could call up three-dimensional representations of whatever it was you wanted to observe—within the limits of the aliens' knowledge and the ability of the human brain to comprehend what it saw. Through this image you watched, on the display surface of the lower box, the complementing data.

  The mode of operation was deeply unhuman. There were no buttons to press, no keyboards on which to rattle. Instead, you leaned your head forward into the Pocket and thought about what it was you wanted to know. Then you retreated slightly, still keeping your head within the Pocket, and the display would hold until you changed it for something else.

  At first, Strider had found the experience almost terrifying: it was as if she were being asked to stick her head blindly into the unknown, with every chance that the unknown had sharp teeth and strong jaws. Soon, though, she and the rest of her officers became accustomed to it. In times of idleness, the officers would enjoy themselves conjuring up fantastically detailed 3D images of the outer hull of the Santa Maria or—a special favorite—the spiral galaxy, which the humans had learned was known as Heaven's Ancestor. The image could be slowly rotated along any axis, so that at one moment you could be looking down on the full face of the galaxy and at the next you could be watching it from the edge-on angle at which Strider and Nelson had first seen it. You could also narrow the focus, seemingly almost infinitely, until you found yourself observing a single star. Finding a planet to look at was more difficult, but Nelson had by chance managed it once—disappointingly, it appeared to be only a little ball of sterile rock.

  Observing planets within The Wondervale was easier, especially since the aliens provided guidance. An almost depressingly high proportion of them proved to be inhabited by technological species (The Wondervale is a field of many wars), although here the resolution of the Pockets broke down: the Santa Maria was currently too far from any star to be able to conduct a full surface scan of a planet—the smallest structures that could be seen were cities. And, thought Strider, you can probably up your estimate of the number of advanced civilizations, because presumably some species don't build cities.

  Two Pockets—the ones on the far right and far left—were different from the others. They were reserved, the aliens had somewhat chillingly explained, for communications. Even more than observation of planets, this brought it home that The Wondervale was rich in technological civilizations.

  #

  "How many of you are there?" Strider had asked, not long after the revelation that the trans-reality aliens could do most things but couldn't guide the Santa Maria home.

  WE ARE THREE.

  Once more she saw a strange flicker out of the side of her eye. "I wish I could see you."

 
YOU HAVE JUST SEEN ONE OF US.

  "I mean, see you properly."

  YOU JUST HAVE.

  "What do you look like? To each other?"

  LIKE WHAT YOU HAVE JUST SEEN. ALTHOUGH WE CAN SEE EACH OTHER DIRECTLY, NOT JUST MOMENTARILY THROUGH THE EDGES OF OUR VISION.

  "All I've been able to see is the occasional fleeting patch of light," she said.

  "Me too," said Nelson. "I'm not sure quite how much I like this, gentle lady. If I've gotta meet aliens, I want them to be there. I don't mind if they look like double-pronged sea anemones, but I want to be able to shake their . . . well, tendrils, I guess."

  WE'RE DIFFERENT, said the trilling voice in the two humans' minds. WE HAVE NO FLESH. WE SHOW OURSELVES—WE CAN SEE OURSELVES—ONLY AS IMAGES.

  "Can we call you that?" said Strider. "Images?"

  IT IS A NAME AS GOOD AS ANY OTHER, said the voice. IT DOES NOT OFFEND US.

  "And there are three of you?"

  WE HAVE JUST SAID AS MUCH.

  "Do you have individual names?"

  YES. WE ARE INDIVIDUALS. THOSE NAMES ARE NOT EASILY TRANSLATABLE INTO CONCEPTS THAT YOUR CULTURE CAN UNDERSTAND.

  Strider shrugged uneasily. She'd heard this before. It wasn't easy to be constantly reminded that your species were the dimwits of the Universe, however true that might be. Humanity was clearly, by the standards of the Images, a very young civilization. Yeah, that was a better way of thinking about it: not so much thick as just an infant, undereducated but with the potential for genius. In a few million years humanity could probably beat the Images at four-handed chess.

  "What would you like us to call you?"

  For the first time the three voices stopped speaking/singing in unison.

  THE NEAREST WE CAN TRANSLATE TO MY NAME IS HEARTFIRE, said one of them.

  AND I AM NIGHTMIRROR, said the next.

  There was a pause before the last one said: YOU HAD BEST CALL ME TEN PER CENT EXTRA FREE.

  "That's a goddam silly name," muttered Nelson.

  "I don't think we're in much of a position to describe things as goddam silly," Strider hissed. "We're the ones who were too goddam silly to be able to avoid a wormhole—remember?"

  Nelson mumbled something that, probably fortunately, Strider couldn't quite make out.

  "How can we tell you apart?" she said.

  BY DISCOVERING OUR PERSONALITIES, said the three voices, once again in that almost-unison.

  #

  Pinocchio lay on his back in a field of potatoes, staring up at a field of barley. In reconstructing the Santa Maria the Images had done many things, most notably replacing the drive with one that relied on tachyonic interactions. The drive had yet to be initiated: the ship was currently just floating. Even when the drive was in operation, Pinocchio had discovered from the Images, because it was capable of trans-light speeds, it produced no accelerative gravity; the Images had therefore reintroduced the spin which the Santa Maria had long ago used to produce a centrifugal equivalent of Mars-standard. The fields were folded back flat against the interior of the hull once more.

  The Images had saved his life—he was perfectly aware of that. More accurately, they had been able to release him from the intellectual stasis into which he had had to enter in order to get the ship's basic systems up and running. But, in releasing him, they had also changed him. He suspected that they had left a part of themselves inside him—that this was the only reason why he was once more alive.

  Because he was different now. An extra element had been added to his consciousness. He wasn't sure if he'd become more human or more alien: it was difficult to tell, having never had direct experience of being either.

  He sat up, and plunged a hand into the earth beside him. He found a small potato, and carefully, with his fingers, severed it from its neighbors. Knowing that what he was doing was illegal, he lifted the potato to his lips, relishing its earthy smell. Then, giving himself no time to think about his action, he put it in his mouth and ate it, enjoying both its taste and its crispness. He couldn't actually swallow it, of course, because he had no throat and thereafter no digestive tract, but he could experience the sensation of eating.

  After a minute he spat out the shreds of undigested potato.

  What he had done had given him pleasure. He had tasted. These things had been abstractions before the Images had overhauled him. He had been aware that various events were better than others—he liked it when Strider kissed him on the cheek, disliked it when she was angry with him—but everything had been distanced. Things had been good because they were in accord with one of his imperatives; things had been bad because they were in discord with another. Now he was experiencing events directly: he was feeling.

  He was about to pluck himself another potato when the whole of the Santa Maria shook.

  #

  "What in the name of Holy Umbel was that?" said Strider, jolted out of drowsiness. It was too easy to half-doze off here on the command deck now that the Images had largely taken over control of the Santa Maria—hell, they more or less were the Santa Maria. Soon they would finish their conversions and the ship could do something more constructive than seemingly hang in space.

  WE ARE UNDER ATTACK, said the voice which she now recognized as that of Ten Per Cent Extra Free.

  The Santa Maria had not originally been designed as a warcraft. The Images had transformed it in many ways. The shuttles in the blisters along its sides were now armed with weapons that Strider barely understood. The ship itself was surrounded with invisible defenses that were totally incomprehensible to her, and was itself bristling with armaments. All she knew about this diverse weaponry was that in most cases using it obeyed the general laws of weaponry that had been in existence since the discovery of the efficacy of throwing a rock: aim it in the right direction, and fire. A few of the Santa Maria's weapons weren't even like that: they weren't so much directional as radiational.

  "Who's attacking us, dammit? We ain't done nothing!"

  Strider leapt to the nearest Pocket and jabbed her head into it. She desired it to create for her a representation of the aggressor.

  She stood back, and at once the Pocket filled up with blackness. In the center of the blackness floated a craft shaped roughly like a mallet with nails sticking out of the handle. From one of the nails a spark of light flashed directly towards her eyes. She flinched reflexively.

  The Santa Maria shook again.

  O'Sondheim was on the deck with her. Sometime during the hell of the wormhole he had rediscovered his purpose in being; Strider still wasn't overly fond of him, but she had learned to respect the new O'Sondheim.

  He moved rapidly to one of the communications Pockets.

  "Can we speak to these people?" he shouted to the air.

  WE CAN TRY TO OPEN UP A COMMUNICATIONS CHANNEL, Ten Per Cent Extra Free said to both of them.

  "Then do so, please," said O'Sondheim, more calmly.

  "Can we shoot the fuckers out of space?" said Strider. The Santa Maria was hers. Anyone attacking it was like someone attacking her.

  WE WOULD HAVE A THREE PER CENT CHANCE OF SUCCESS, said Ten Per Cent Extra Free. THAT IS ABOUT THE SAME CHANCE THAT THEY HAVE OF DESTROYING US. WE ARE BETTER TO FOLLOW MR O'SONDHEIM'S PLAN AND TRY TO ESTABLISH COMMUNICATIONS.

  "Can't we just turn on the drive and get the hell out of here?"

  OUR AGGRESSORS HAVE A TACHYONIC DRIVE ALSO. THEY WOULD MERELY FOLLOW US.

  "I'm getting something," said O'Sondheim. Strider darted to join him.

  The communications Pocket was glowing. There was no coherent image in it yet, but flashes in its midst suggested that one was forming.

  "I'd like to blast the fuckers as well," confided O'Sondheim. Back on Mars, in one of the tackier bars where the officers had got to know each other after training sessions designed, uselessly, to help them get to know each other, Strider had once seen how O'Sondheim preferred to defend himself: by hitting the other guy first.

  WE COULD TRY IT IF YOU WISH, said Ten P
er Cent Extra Free coolly, BUT I DO NOT THINK IT ADVISABLE.

  "Yeah. We got that message," Strider snapped.

  At last there was something emerging in the Pocket. The Santa Maria rocked yet again.

  "But couldn't we just sort of shoot something across their bows?" she added.

  IT WOULD BE A WASTE OF WEAPONRY. BESIDES, THEY MAY NOT BE OUR ENEMIES.

  "They're not exactly behaving like friends," she said.

  IN THE WONDERVALE IT IS INADVISABLE TO ASSUME ANYONE YOU ENCOUNTER MIGHT BE A FRIEND.

  "Oh. Great."

  Something that could have been called a face appeared in the Pocket. It seemed to be covered in small triangular scales. It had a row of what Strider supposed were eyes dotted around what seemed to be its chin. Above them there was what could be a mouth. The thing that could have been—probably was—a mouth was emitting a harsh jabbering noise.

  I WILL TRANSLATE, said Nightmirror, who had joined Ten Per Cent Extra Free on the deck.

  The jabbering cut off very suddenly, to be replaced by words that Strider and O'Sondheim could understand.

  ." . . trespassing into space claimed by the Autarch Nalla and his emissary Kaantalech. You will subjugate yourselves to—"

  "No we won't," said O'Sondheim. "You just go subjugate yourself."

  "I think," murmured Strider, "that perhaps a little tact is called for." She knew how he felt: she felt the same herself. This was the schoolyard bully picking without warning on one of the smaller kids. It was always fun to see the kid sock the bully smack on the nose. The trouble was, you never knew if the bully's big brother or sister was lurking somewhere around.

  "I am Captain Leonie Strider of the starship Santa Maria," she said to the face in the Pocket. "We are travelling peacefully from Mars to Tau Ceti II. You have attacked us without provocation."

  "I have never heard of either world," said the face dismissively. "It doesn't matter. You are trespassers here."

  Strider turned away from the Pocket. "Ready an implosion bolt," she said to Ten Per Cent Extra Free.

  I WOULD NOT ADVISE IT.