She tried shaking the idea from her mind, telling herself that she was making a mountain out of a molehill. But she couldn’t stop following the thought through. Had whoever was responsible for this known that she was inside the probe, in a state of suspended process, waiting to look at the plates when she awoke? Or had they simply thought the probe a simple, mechanical artifact flung from a distant star?
No. The latter didn’t make sense, because if that were the case, then why remove just one plate and then send the probe on its way again?
All of this paled into insignificance compared to the one troubling thought that continued to niggle at the back of her mind: this had to have been done by something other than human. There was no sign of the Linde in any of the surviving photos, and no evidence that humans had been to the system, advanced or otherwise. The theft had to have been performed by aliens.
And this unsettling notion, assuming it was correct, gave rise to an even more troubling thought: from her trajectory, could these aliens have then guessed where she came from? Could they have traced her origins back to Earth? What would they do if they did?
The awful uncertainty of her situation galled her. The whole point of going into deep storage and waiting out the trip past Jian Lao had been to gain hard data on what was going on. But in the end it had done the exact opposite. If something had approached the tumbling probe and been caught on film, then she would have preferred that either the film had been left intact or that she had been destroyed outright.
But in a way she could understand why these aliens had gone to the lengths they had. If they didn’t want to be found, then destroying a probe that might be intermittently reporting back home would be the worst thing they could do. Destroying it would only draw attention to them, whereas the ambiguous concealment of data might simply be ignored.
A large part of her was wishing she had never analyzed the data in the first place. It would certainly have been easier that way. After all, in the end there was nothing she could do about it, whatever she found. It wasn’t as if she could turn the probe around and go back to reprimand the aliens. If they wanted anonymity and had been prepared to destroy the Linde to achieve it, then they’d have no hesitation in swatting her like an irritating bug. She couldn’t even call Earth to let them know what she might have stumbled upon, for her transmitter wasn’t powerful enough, and the time lag made the gesture pointless. She was truly alone.
For the first time, as she coasted through space at a substantial percentage of the speed of light, she regretted her decision to remain alone. She needed someone to talk to—someone to offer another opinion, someone off whom she could bounce ideas and thoughts. Even someone just to shout at would have been good.
Where are you, Peter? she mused as she studied the vast spread of stars. If you were here, what would you be telling me to do right now?
“I want to find answers,” he had said that last night they’d spent together before their copies—before she—came on-line, “explanations for the things we still don’t understand.”
Could she spend eternity not knowing what had happened to the Andrei Linde? Could she stand the possibility that an alien had merely interfered with the probe instead of making any form of contact whatsoever? Could she live with the thought that her friends and her dream of paradise had died meaningless deaths that would never be acknowledged by their loved ones back home?
She would have to. That was the short and brutal answer. She would have to and, therefore, she would. Maybe someone else would have thought of something to do, but she couldn’t. The only choice open to her was her next destination.
Hipp40918; Hipp41308, Hipp43477, 2 Ursa Major, Muscida? Bode’s Nebula, M82, NGC3077, NGC2976, IC2574?
Opening her magnetic vanes to their maximum extent, she directed her dishes forward and her low-g thrusters backward. Then, with only her thoughts and the stars to keep her company, she continued her lonely journey into the vast tourist’s playground of space.
2.1
FEARFUL SYMMETRY
2160.9.13 Standard Mission Time
(12 August, 2163 UT)
2.1.1
Alander paced the confines of the cockpit, counting each step as a means of distraction from his growing anxiety. There was no sensation of movement to suggest that the hole ship was docking with the giant craft the aliens had referred to as Mantissa. For all he knew, Silent Liquidity could have been performing a simple hop from one side of the system to the other. Then again, it might not have been going anywhere at all. It was impossible to say one way or the other.
His only companion was Ueh, the Yuhl “priest,” but he had done little to allay Alander’s worries. He just sat motionless throughout the wait on his side of the boundary, his alien features fixed and unreadable as he stared unflinchingly at Alander.
“Do you know what’s going to happen to us?” Alander asked him at one point. He had settled on a male gender for the alien because his mind needed something to hang onto. Calling the Yuhl “it” was too depersonalizing.
“No,” Ueh said in reply.
“Do you know who we might talk to?”
“No.”
“Are we likely to talk to the person in charge? The captain?”
“I don’t know/The Praxis decides.”
“Decides what? Who we meet or what to do with us?”
“Both.” The alien’s jaw clicked shut then open again.
THERE IS NO [UNKNOWN] BETWEEN US, PETER/ALANDER.
Alander examined the missing term, deciphering it as: we/unity. Was Ueh trying to say that they weren’t allies? If so, it was understandable. Nevertheless, as they were quite literally stuck in the same boat for the moment, Alander felt he should use the time to gain some local knowledge. Or try to, anyway. It surprised him, though, that Ueh didn’t do likewise. This was a perfect opportunity to learn about an alien species, yet he just sat there, silent and staring. Maybe the Yuhl didn’t have the same sense of curiosity that humans did. Or perhaps the aliens were just too damned arrogant and simply presumed that there was nothing about humanity they particularly needed to know.
“Was there we-slash-unity between you and your companion?”
Ueh’s expression was utterly unreadable. “Yes.”
Alander remembered the results of the scan showing that they had been of different genders. “Were you lovers or—” He sought another term. “Or breeding partners?”
“We are helots do not breed.”
Ah. That was an insight Alander hadn’t hoped to get so early. The existence of reproductive rights within Yuhl society—or the fragment that remained of it, at least— might indicate a heavily stratified regime, as the existence of the helots themselves suggested.
“Are there children aboard the Mantissa?”
OUR CHILDREN ARE [UNKNOWN].
Alander couldn’t decipher the missing words. There were more than one, and each had multiple meanings. Lost? Unborn? In suspended animation? He couldn’t decide.
“Who speaks for the Praxis?” he asked, pulling at that thread instead. If the Praxis was some kind of governing body, the equivalent of a chairperson was who he would be looking for.
“The Praxis speaks for itself.”
“Is it a sort of group mind, then?”
“No.”
Alander sighed. “I would really like to learn more about your people,” he said. “Will there be someone else in the Mantissa that could answer my questions?”
“I am answering when I can not understand your questions,” said Ueh. Then, in a double vocal cord ululation that made Alander wince, the alien added: “Strange.”
Strange? Why would the alien think his question strange? He imagined it to be the type of thing any alien culture might ask another. But again, perhaps this was something missing from or different in the Yuhl’s intellectual makeup. Perhaps their only focus was on themselves and their own survival. Maybe after living so long as scavengers in the Starfish’s shadow, they had learned to cur
b their curiosity and concern themselves only with themselves.
On the other hand, he had never spoken to an alien before. For all he knew, there might be a detailed protocol when it came to first contacts, protocol he was failing to follow. If that protocol involved stealing a species’ resources and wiping out entire colonies, then the Yuhl certainly had a long way to go in regards to diplomatic relations.
Alander’s train of thought was interrupted when the hole ship suddenly shuddered, and the screen came to life. It took him a moment to work out exactly what he was looking at. He appeared to be flying low over a smooth cloud bank, ascending slowly into a black sky. Then something round and darker still cut across his view, and he realized that it was another hole ship: a modified one shaped like a stubby Y in cross section with growths sprouting from the center.
“You have returned Silent Liquidity,” came a voice through the cockpit’s speakers.
“Only temporarily,” he replied quickly. “It will leave with me, I assure you. I am here to offer you Ueh Ellil in exchange for information.”
There was a slight pause. Another alien cockpit swept past, then another. He felt as though he was trapped in an old classical model of the atom: one electron of many orbiting a fat uranium nucleus.
“Information is the most valuable commodity you could ask for,” said the voice, “whereas life is expensive to maintain in space.” It spoke slowly, carefully, as if to ensure that both vocal streams worked in unison. The Yuhl wanted to make sure, Alander thought, that he would not misunderstand what they were saying. The effect, however, was still high-pitched and dissonant in his ears.
“You’re saying you’re not interested in trading?”
“Such an arrangement is not confluent. You will not fare well from it.”
“Then I guess I might as well leave,” he said evenly. “Is that what you want?”
“Do you think leaving is an option?”
“You tell me,” he said. “Is it?”
The pause was longer this time. “The helots are valuable to me/us. Your leader has promised to kill the other half of this operating pair if we do not deal fairly with you. I/we do not want this.” There was another pause of a few seconds. “I/we will let you leave unharmed, should you so wish.”
“But you’re not prepared to bargain for the return of the helots?”
“I/we are prepared to bargain.”
Alander felt like he was going around in circles. “All right,” he said. “That’s progress. What we would like is any information you have on the beings you refer to as the Ambivalence.”
“I/we do not know them,” was the instantaneous response.
“You must,” Alander insisted. “You’ve been following them for over two thousand years! You’d have to know something.”
“The Ambivalence does not reveal itself to we/us,” came the reply. “I/we know only its works.”
“Can you tell us what you know about that, then?”
“It will make no difference.”
“Because we’re the already-dead, right?”
There was no immediate reply to this.
A trio of cockpits, one comprising at least two dozen units linked in a fat ring, swooped past, but instead of vanishing into the distance, the formation swung around in a tight arc and came back to approach Silent Liquidity.
“The Praxis will talk to you,” the alien voice finally announced.
Alander frowned. “I assumed you were the Praxis.”
The alien’s reply translated as: “I am Conjugator Vaise/Ashu.” The name came from a difficult double meaning with connotations of mediation and bringing about change.
The ringlike structure approached. Clearly they wanted him to dock his cockpit in the middle.
“General, are you hearing all this?”
“Loud and clear,” came the reply from Axford. His voice was so clear that it seemed to Alander as if the man was right there in the cockpit with him. Strangely, the thought gave him comfort. The ex-general was dangerous, but at least his motives were immediately comprehensible.
“You approve of docking the cockpits?” he asked.
“In for a penny, as they say.”
“As they used to say,” returned Alander.
“How very cynical of you,” Axford said with a dry laugh.
“Just being realistic.” Alander nodded to himself as though he had nothing to worry about. As long as he stayed in two-way electronic contact with Silent Liquidity, he would be able to communicate with Axford and take advantage of the translator. But the thought of leaving the cockpit made him nervous. He would be completely vulnerable.
His captive sang a series of overlapping syllables that the hole ship was only able to translate in part. Whatever the alien said, it had something to do with a notion of congruity that Alander couldn’t get his head around. Perhaps, he thought, it sprang from the innate concept of superposition that Axford thought might have sprung from possessing two sets of vocal cords and such pronounced symmetry. If the aliens did indeed have a better grasp of quantum states, their entire philosophy might reflect this. Such a philosophy would conflict strongly with the mechanistic, Western worldview under which Alander had been raised. Hence his failure to understand.
But he didn’t doubt that there would be some things their separate philosophies had in common, and if they could just discover what that was, then there was always a chance that a meaningful arrangement could be reached between the two species. After all, both had more in common with each other than either did with the Spinners or the Starfish, who hadn’t attempted to communicate at all.
The ring structure descended over Silent Liquidity. When asked for authorization to dock, he gave it without hesitation. Despite his apprehensions, there was no point holding back now.
The cockpit experienced a series of very faint nudges, then the maneuver was complete. The airlock opened. Alander instinctively stepped away from it. A bubble of yellowish atmosphere bulged into the room like an inflating balloon. Stepping into that bubble, seconds later, was the third Yuhl Alander had physically met. Of them all, this one was by far the most imposing.
It stood well over two meters tall, and its body was much more solid than those of the two captives. Its skin exhibited pronounced ridges as though it had been teased into shape and left to dry. Where the helots had worn simple kilts and vests, this one was wrapped in a complicated pattern of bandages and cloths from which hung ribbons in deep purple and black. Its face was painted in similar colors, giving it an even more masklike effect. It wore flared boots on its long, tapering shins that clicked like a Geiger counter with every step it took.
“Conjugator Vaise-Ashu, I’m guessing?” Alander said, refusing to be intimidated by the alien’s size or presence.
The alien looked briefly at him, then faced Ueh.
“Have you/been harmed?” it asked Ueh.
“No,” Alander’s captive replied. “Although I am hungry for our food.”
“Food shall be brought.” The black eyes turned once again to Alander.
“Oh, yes, of course,” Alander said after a moment, when he realized that the alien was waiting to see if he would allow this. “My culture has strict rules for the care of prisoners. I don’t wish any of you harm.”
The conjugator didn’t respond to Alander’s comment. Instead, he pointed toward the cockpit entrance while at the same time two small plates between his eyes clicked twice in quick succession. Almost instantly, another alien walked into the cockpit carrying a small, flat package. When the yellowish bubble of energy expanded and merged with Ueh’s, the package was silently delivered to him. Then the courier alien exited without so much as a word of thanks from either Ueh or the conjugator.
Alander watched as Ueh hurriedly opened the package and greedily devoured the contents. He took to the food in tiny, quick bites—too quick, in fact, for Alander to discern exactly what was being eaten. A dark-colored tissue of some kind, possibly vegetable in origin.
Alander turned to the alien. “What guarantee do I have that I’ll be allowed to return to my hole ship once I’ve left it?
“None,” said the Yuhl bluntly and without apology. The alien tilted its head. “All things happen.”
“As long as they don’t happen to me,” he snapped. Resigning himself, he walked forward, through the cockpit exit corridor. Silent Liquidity’s atmosphere folded around him as he left the hole ship, giving him, along with his I-suit, added protection. Even so, he still felt incredibly exposed.
Conjugator Vaise fell in behind him. Alander instructed Silent Liquidity to collapse the force wall as Ueh brought up the rear. The three of them filed through the corridor and out of the airlock. What awaited them there surprised Alander, for he had been preparing himself for something completely alien. But there was just a simple umbilical made out of ribbed, opaque material that gave slightly when he walked over it. The artificial gravity that oriented him in the hole ship didn’t even flicker.
At the end of the umbilical was another airlock identical to Silent Liquidity’s. It opened smoothly before them. The far side held a small antechamber not dissimilar to the usual cockpit. It was sparsely furnished and barely large enough for the three of them. This, he assumed, was where they would talk to the Praxis—but he was wrong.
The conjugator walked ahead of him and placed one narrow hand on the wall before them. It irised open with a hiss, and Alander took his first look at a Yuhl habitat. It was crowded. That was his initial impression. Everywhere he looked there were furniture or people or equipment or objects that could have been works of art, for all he could tell. The lighting was orange-tinged and dim, and the noise was overwhelming, with dozens of double throats competing for attention. The space containing it all consisted of an intestine-like tube curving to either side, obviously following the center of the ringlike design of the vessel. Some of the structures extended up the wall and onto the ceiling. A single step across the threshold demonstrated an abruptly reduced ambient gravity in the habitat: much less than that of Earth: possibly as low as half.
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