by J. N. Chaney
Thorn assumed a cycle probably meant a year, which meant the Danzur were on the very brink of becoming an interstellar civilization. And that gave Thorn the inroad he was looking for.
“Humans were once at that stage. In fact, our first trans-light-capable ship, which we named the Pool of Stars, apparently ended up somewhere in this part of the galaxy, potentially very close to here. We’re a—” He glanced at Brid. “Is archaeological a good way to describe our mission?”
Brid nodded. “Oh. Yes. Yes, that’s an excellent description. We’re an archeological expedition, seeking to find out what happened to our ship. It unfortunately was lost, and we’re not sure why.”
“I see,” Sophat replied. “And you are seeking to determine if we have any knowledge of this ship of yours—this Pool of Stars, I believe you named it?”
“Yes, that’s exactly it,” Thorn replied.
“That will necessitate a further archival request, under Hegemony Directive—”
“I was hoping we could apply for an exemption to your normal processes,” Thorn put in, taking a chance. Surely these people must have ways of bypassing their own, ponderous systems of governance, in times of, say, emergency. “Unfortunately, our time here is limited, and we are expected back in our own space soon.”
Sophat just stared for a moment, his bright eyes fixed on Thorn in what had to be polite disbelief. Another Danzur leaned in and again whispered something to him, setting a scene as old as governments. Sophat turned to listen, then looked back at Thorn, his mobile face shifting into a new, inscrutable expression.
“Since you are new to us, and in the interest of promoting cordial relations, I will execute the necessary emergency exemption to normal procedures and expedite your request,” the Danzur said.
Thorn nodded with what he hoped was diplomatic gravitas. “Thank you, Sophat. We are most appreciative.”
A third Danzur leaned in to speak to Sophat. The whispered conversation went on for a moment, then Sophat turned, again, to Thorn.
“Of course, in the interests of reciprocal cordial relations, perhaps there is something you can do for the Danzur Sovereignty,” Sophat said.
Thorn resisted the temptation to smile—he’d been expecting exactly that. He heard Dart utter a faint sniff beside him, a simple noise that somehow still managed to impart fussy officiousness. It was, Thorn thought, a truly magnificent sound, and one that Dart must have practiced.
“What did you have in mind?” Thorn asked mildly. He adopted one of his three patented looks for dealing with people who loved paperwork—in this case, it was number three—friendly interest with a tinge of youthful vigor.
“Our star maps are derived solely from remote observations gathered from here, our home world. We presume that, as a race that has already begun to travel the stars, that your maps are much more detailed and accurate than ours. We would, therefore, ask you for copies of your star maps so that as we begin to take our own first, tentative steps beyond our world, we are doing so with the best data we can obtain.”
Thorn still found it jarring that what came through the translator as a smooth, cultured voice, was actually delivered in the Danzur native tongue as a string of bestial grunts and growls, ending with a truly magnificent coughing snort that rang off the walls. After a second to recover, Thorn gave the request consideration, working through the ramifications of a new star faring race with vague intentions. The Danzur hadn’t been hostile—quite the opposite—but that didn’t assure that they couldn’t become hostile.
As far as the ON was concerned, star charts were highly classified documents, as they were centered around the human home worlds and could be used to track and destroy all Orbital Navy activity. Thorn technically didn’t have the authority to declassify or release any of them to anybody. He could try to get that authority, or at least get clearance to go ahead, but a conventional message would take days, even weeks, to reach ON space, and for the reply to return. He could do it in real-time using Joining, but the only people he was certain he could contact that way were Densmore and Kira. For various reasons, he really didn’t want to speak to either of them—not in these circumstances, anyway.
So he made a decision. This mission was a vital one. Whatever the Danzur knew about the Pool of Stars might prove crucial in completing it. He’d just have to hope Fleet saw fit to back him up on what he was about to do.
In this case, it would literally be easier to get forgiveness than permission.
“We can provide you with copies of our star charts that encompass your space, and that for several light-years around it. For reasons I’m sure you’ll understand, we won’t provide any information about our own space.”
He felt Brid and Dart both look at him, surprised, but he ignored them.
Sophat leaned toward one of his advisors, whispered something, and had something whispered back. The act was becoming an irritation, but Thorn smiled blandly, waiting for form to be observed.
“That is acceptable,” the Danzur finally said. “Your caution regarding your own territorial integrity is perfectly understandable.”
They concluded their meeting, with the understanding they would exchange data in one Danzur day, which was just over twenty-eight hours. Until then, Thorn and the others could enjoy the hospitality of the Danzur—and study them, just as Thorn knew the Danzur fully intended to do with them in return.
Thorn and the others were invited to a formal dinner, in the same room where they’d spoken to Sophat and his advisors earlier. It appeared that they weren’t going to be allowed any further into the orbital station, or down to the surface—which was fine by Thorn, since he didn’t want this to turn into an involved diplomatic mission. He was, after all, keenly aware that he was not a diplomat, and probably shouldn’t portray himself as one.
It turned out that the Danzur were strict vegetarians. They seemed alright with Dart using a portable scanner to confirm none of it would be toxic to the humans, and it all proved to be edible, with some of the items eliciting approving grins from the human diners. Thorn picked at an item that resembled a carrot crossed with a human ear, chewed meditatively, and pronounced it good. The Danzur watched him with delight as he tried almost everything on the table. He drew the line at a greasy bean that quivered in oily broth.
“Smells like locker rooms and failure,” Thorn muttered to himself, then smiled brightly when Dart spooned more of the carrots-ears onto his plate. That, he could manage, and easily.
“And the gym mats,” Mol said.
“How would you know?”
“Don’t ask,” Mol said, grinning.
As dinner ended, Sophat tapped a chime. Thorn and company focused their attention on them. The Danzur spoke—at length—about the birth of a new relationship between his people, and humans, the wonderful opportunities it presented, and so on and so on. Somehow, despite the fluffy, feel-good nature of the speech, he still managed to work a shocking amount of bureaucratic bloat into each sentence, a true act of governmental wizardry.
Mol leaned close to Thorn, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I feel really sorry for whatever diplomatic types end up dealing with this. I hope they’re the especially patient sort.”
Thorn just nodded. As Sophat wound down his speech, he gestured to one of his underlings. The chosen Danzur nodded, then crossed to Thorn, holding out a thin, flexible sheet that resembled rice paper. Thorn accepted it with a somber nod, then examined it.
It showed a schematic of what was obviously the Danzur system, with an arcing trajectory making a graceful sweep around the gas giant. On the reverse side, he found a grainy image of what could only be the Pool of Stars.
“These observations were made by our Astronomical Directorate,” Sophat said. “Your ship passed through our system approximately thirty-eight cycles ago.”
Dart lifted a hand, trying to interrupt in a polite way. “An obviously alien ship passed through your system, but it only rated some passing observations? Weren’t you curious what i
t was, where it came from, that sort of thing?”
“We are aware that other spacefaring races exist, and periodically note their vessels passing through, or near, our system. Yours was merely one of many.”
Thorn frowned at that. Many? Who, exactly, owned these many ships passing through the Danzur system? And why?
And why had the Pool of Stars done so? Thorn was no navigator, but he knew enough about spaceflight to recognize a deliberate gravitational slingshot maneuver. Someone had piloted the ship on a very specific trajectory, intended to accelerate it by stealing some angular momentum from the gas giant. The chances of an out-of-control, drifting Pool just happening to fluke into the maneuver by itself, without someone—or something—piloting it was remote barely began to cut it.
He put the questions aside and gave what he hoped was a pleasant look of thanks. “Once more, Sophat, we thank you. We’re prepared to transmit the star charts we discussed to you, since I don’t think we have any compatible data storage devices.”
Sophat offered an acknowledgement. Thorn left it to Brid and Dart to work out the details of the transfer.
They all clambered back aboard the Gyrfalcon and tried to wind down, burping grandly from the vast array of Danzur dishes.
“I thought about going into the Diplomatic Corps once,” Brid said, as they reconfigured the Gyrfalcon’s cabin for sleeping. “They were only interested in Joiners, though.”
“Being able to read the minds of those sitting across the table is a handy negotiating trick,” Dart said, and Brid nodded.
“For sure.” She glanced at Thorn. “Hey, sir, did you try some Joining on our hosts? See if you could find out what makes them tick?”
Thorn shook his head. “Nope. For all I know, they might be able to detect it. And the last thing I want to have to report back to Fleet is a sticky diplomatic incident.”
Mol gave a sly smile. “We do have what we came here for now, though.”
“Okay, I might have been thinking about trying it right after we get underway,” Thorn admitted.
Using Joining to peer into the minds of the Danzur—assuming it was even possible—certainly might reveal useful things to know. But those weren’t the most interesting questions here. The ones that were revolved around the Pool of Stars, and her mysterious journey through the system, as she changed course and accelerated to—
Where? Where was she going? And who was taking her there?
13
As it turned out, Thorn could scry into the minds of the Danzur. As the Gyrfalcon accelerated away from their home world, he ventured a broad, unfocused Joining, one intended to observe conscious thoughts of any Danzur about the orbital platform. He reasoned that, if Sophat and his minions were being deceptive, or even harbored some antagonism toward them, he should at least be able to sense that—and hopefully do it without the Danzur even being aware of it.
As it turned out, the Danzur were just as stilted, hidebound and, frankly, boring in the way they thought, as they were face-to-face.
“Seriously, their biggest concern seems to be a whole bunch of forms they have to write and reports they have to fill out because of our visit,” Thorn said. “I didn’t find even a hint of them lying to us. If anything, our willingness to engage in proper channels seemed to excite them, almost a fuzz of joy in each thought.” Thorn snorted, grinning. “Imagine that—taking happiness from layers of governmental busybodies. Their attention to detail is . . . quite something.”
“Which means this data for the Pool of Stars must be correct,” Dart said.
Trixie cut in. “Actually, all it really means is that they believe those data are accurate, not that they are.”
Thorn smiled. “Trixie, you’re absolutely right. The trouble is that if they genuinely believe it, then as far as they’re concerned, they’re absolutely telling us the truth.”
“Which means,” Mol said, “we want to follow that ship, right?”
“We do,” Thorn said. “And that shouldn’t be too difficult, right? At the velocity recorded for her by the Danzur, she couldn’t be very far outside this system at all.”
“I’ve calculated an intercept trajectory,” Trixie said. “Any time you guys are ready, we can start the big chase, kids.”
Mol snorted. “Not much of a chase. Hell, we should be able to pick her up on our sensors pretty soon.”
Thorn settled back into the g-couch as Mol and Trixie guided the Gyrfalcon onto a new trajectory, one that would intersect, and then follow, the one recorded by the Danzur for the Pool of Stars.
As they swept past the sprawling glory of the gas giant, Thorn noticed Mol giving her panel a heated stare.
“Something wrong?”
She raised a finger, tapped the controls in an irritated staccato, then switched the Gyrfalcon’s sensors into full-power active mode for a few seconds before shutting them down with a final sweep of her hand. Banging away with active sensors essentially turned the fighter into a powerful beacon, announcing her presence to anyone who happened to be looking. As the data returns came sluicing back, Mol’s face became even gloomier.
She looked up at Thorn. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“No Pool of Stars,” she said, shaking her head. “Based on what we got from the Danzur, we should know pretty much exactly where she is, within a few light-seconds, anyway. But there’s nothing there.”
Brid leaned forward. “Maybe she made another course change.”
“Wouldn’t matter,” Mol said. “She can only accelerate so much, which means there’s a limited volume of space where she could be. But there’s nothing.”
It was Thorn’s turn to look quizzical. “Could she have crashed into something?” he asked, but he answered his own question with one look at the display. Orbital mechanics were complicated, but everything obeyed certain laws. There simply were no planetary bodies she could have hit. “Actually, never mind,” he said. “I can see she couldn’t have. Can’t hit what’s not there.”
“Maybe she slammed into something passing through the Kuiper belt,” Brid suggested, but Trixie answered.
“Highly unlikely. The average density of objects in the Belt is about one per million cubic kilometers. The chances of the Pool of Stars smacking into one of them are—let’s just they’re not zero, but that’s about it.”
“Okay,” Thorn said, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “If she hasn’t been destroyed, then she must be out there. The only other possibility is that she used her Alcubierre drive to hop away—where, we don’t know, but that places some limits on the second search grid.”
“Which puts us back at square one,” Dart said, sighing.
“Not necessarily,” Mol replied. “I say we follow her trajectory anyway. There are two systems her course would pass through, one about three light-years away, the other about five. Kinda stands to reason she’d follow a trajectory she started, right?”
“This would only work if her Alcubierre drive was actually working, though,” Brid said. “And, as far as we know, it wasn’t.”
“That was kind of the whole problem, wasn’t it?” Dart asked.
Thorn shrugged. “Maybe the crew got it working again. Or maybe they were helped.”
“By whom?” Brid asked. “The Danzur are the only other race out here, and they aren’t even trans-light capable yet.”
“Or at least that’s what they told us,” Mol replied.
Thorn gave her a puzzled look. “You saying we have reason to doubt that?”
Mol looked at the control panel. “Trixie?”
“Yeah, so, when an Alcubierre drive that’s running even a little off spec travels through space, it generates not just the big wave that pushes its separate, little reality bubble along, but also lots of little ones,” the AI said. “It’s kind of like dropping a rock or something in water. If it’s something small and streamlined, it makes only a little splash and a few ripples. But if it’s something bigger and flatter, then it makes a big kerplunk,
and lots of little ripples.”
“That’s why drive engineers are so obsessive about keeping their Alcubierre rigs tuned up, like they’re fine musical instruments,” Mol said. “The more out of spec they are, the more they waste energy, burn fuel, and leave a noticeable trail through space.”
“Go on,” Thorn said.
“Well, since I didn’t have much to do sitting at the dock back there,” Trixie said, “I decided to scan the system for everything I could think of. Oh—fun fact! If you could smell the upper atmosphere of that gas giant, the mix of gases would make it smell like someone ripped a really nasty fart.”
Thorn laughed. “Anyway, Trixie—”
“Yeah. So, I found some telltale gravity waves, the kind a misaligned Alcubierre drive would leave behind it. They were really weak—in fact, I had to keep running the detector pretty much the whole time we were there just to be able to confirm it.”
“So an Alcubierre drive was operating in the Danzur system?” Thorn asked. “When?”
“Sorry, can’t tell,” Trixie replied. “Too many variables. Can’t tell anything about trajectory either, just that it was here.”
“It might very well have been our own drive,” Dart said. “From when we arrived—”
Trixie made a sound like an offended gasp, while Mol’s head snapped around. “We keep our drive running at ninety-eight percent plus efficiency,” she snapped. “There’s no way it’s our own wake.”
“Besides, the Gyrfalcon’s drive isn’t big enough to cause the ripples I detected,” Trixie said, her tone miffed. “I know that because, you know, I’d already thought of that. This was a way bigger ship than this one that caused those ripples, with a way bigger, more powerful drive.”
Dart held up his hands. “Sorry, didn’t mean to offend anyone. I’m just saying there are other things it could be. A natural phenomenon of some sort, for instance.”