by Allen Steele
They moved aft through the ship, making their way down narrow corridors just wide enough for two crewmen to squeeze past one another. They passed crew compartments, fire equipment lockers, and ladders leading to upper decks until they reached another airlock. The lamp above it was green; Tereshkova turned its lockwheel and pushed open the candy-striped hatch. Shillinglaw followed her inside and waited until she shoved the second hatch open. She stepped aside and motioned for him to go through.
The shuttle bay was as cavernous as the rest of the ship was cramped, its ceiling nearly sixty feet above their heads, the deck long enough to serve as a basketball court. Two skiffs were parked wing to wing on the other side of the bay, their tricycle landing gear chocked and tied down, and a repair pod rested within its cradle nearby. Yet it was the spacecraft in the center of the bay that caught Shillinglaw’s attention.
The EAS Maria Celeste was an older shuttle, a model retired from active service nearly a generation ago. Downswept wings on either side of a broad aft section connected to a sleek forward crew module that vaguely resembled a cobra head; an access ramp had been lowered from beneath the hull. There was one much like it on display at the ESA museum at Elysium Centre, complete with stairs leading to the cockpit so that kids could climb inside and play with the controls of the craft that had once been the workhorse of the Mars colonies. Very sturdy, very reliable, and very obsolete.
This one might have just rolled off the assembly line, though, were it not for blackened carbon scores along the underside of its hull and the leading edge of its wings. Yet the wear and tear of atmospheric entry wasn’t what made it unusual. In the stern section, where there had once been the twin bulges of its gas-core nuclear engines, were now a pair of oblong pods, fat and seamless, with no discernible features save for darkened plates along their sides. The old engines were missing; these contraptions were now in their place.
Shillinglaw stared at the shuttle with disbelief. The Maria Celeste had returned, all right…yet it wasn’t the craft that had been mated with the Galileo when it left Earth nearly sixty years ago. Something had gotten to it, changed it…
“Like my ship?” A woman’s voice, from his left side. “You should…it got us home.”
Shillinglaw looked around, saw a woman in a long, white robe strolling toward him. She reached up to pull back its hood, and that was when he recognized Emily Collins.
Despite all his best efforts, Shillinglaw was an old man. There was no way this could be denied: telomerase manipulation could give the illusion of youth, but nothing could change the subtle expression of age that lurked within one’s eyes. Yet one look at Collins, and Shillinglaw saw she hadn’t changed since he’d last seen her. She had the same svelte figure, same short-cropped blond hair, same attractive face…but, most importantly, her eyes were still young.
She had not aged. She was still the same woman he’d last seen fifty-six years ago. Gene therapy couldn’t accomplish this feat any more than cosmetics could transform a crone into a virgin. Trying not to stare at her face, Shillinglaw looked down. The outfit she wore wasn’t an ESA jumpsuit: a floor-length cloak, made of some soft, off-white material threaded with an intricate pattern of whorls and angles and odd, arabesque designs.
“I remember you.” Collins gazed at him with almost as much curiosity as he regarded her. “Shillinglaw, isn’t it…John Shillinglaw? Associate director for the agency?”
“Director General now.” He couldn’t help but stare at her. “I’m surprised you remember me.”
She raised an eyebrow. As she did, the patterns of her robe seemed to change ever so slightly, becoming reddish orange. “You made an impression on us,” she murmured. “Or perhaps you don’t remember?” He shook his head, and for a moment her eyes rolled upward. “Yes, well…it has been some time, hasn’t it?” She glanced at Tereshkova. “He’s the only one? No one else…not even Beck?”
Not recognizing the name of Shillinglaw’s predecessor, Tereshkova’s face expressed ignorance. “Rudolph Beck passed away about fifteen…no, twenty years ago,” Shillinglaw replied. “I’m sure he would have wanted to be here now.”
“Oh. So sorry to hear that.” Collins shook her head in dismay; the patterns of her cloak assumed a purple hue. She turned away from him, looking toward the shuttle. “All right, you can come down now. I guess we’re going to have to deal with him.”
A moment passed, then Theodore Harker emerged from the shuttle. Galileo’s first officer was followed by Jared Ramirez, the astrobiologist from the Western Hemisphere Union who’d belonged to the mission’s science team. As they walked down the belly ramp, Shillinglaw saw that, like Collins, the two men had remained ageless. Although Harker’s hair was long enough now to be pulled back in a ponytail, and Ramirez had cultivated a beard, neither of them were any older than when they’d left Earth. And like Collins, both wore robes, which were identical to hers, with the same complex patterns.
“Sorry about that, sir,” Harker said, grinning sheepishly. “We just wanted to be sure who we were dealing with.” Noticing Shillinglaw’s curious gaze, he pinched a fold of fabric upon his left arm. “Gifts from our friends in Rho Coronae Borealis…sha, they call them. Sacred robes.”
“Of course…sure.” Still trying to catch his breath, Shillinglaw sought to remember details of the classified memo that had been transmitted via hyperlink from the EA ambassador on Coyote. “The hjadd, you mean…the alien race you contacted.”
“That’s them, yes.” Harker stepped forward to extend his hand. “Don’t know if you remember me, sir. Theodore Harker, first officer…former first officer, rather…of the Galileo.”
“Certainly.” Shillinglaw shook his hand, once again marveling at the younger man’s apparent immortality. Tall, broad-faced, hair just as dark as it had been almost six decades ago. Shillinglaw glanced again at the shuttle. “Are they…?”
“The hjadd emissary? No.” Ramirez stood to one side, as if reluctant to join the other two. “Heshe chose to remain on Coyote, or at least until we’ve satisfied himher that our mission is successful.”
Like the others, Jared Ramirez remained unaged; tall and thin, with bushy grey hair and a trim beard, he was still several years older than Harker and Collins, just as he’d been when he joined the expedition—or rather, was drafted. Shillinglaw regarded the scientist with as much distrust as the first time he’d laid eyes on him. The man had once been a traitor; there was no reason for Shillinglaw to think that he had changed.
Instead of looking away, though, as he’d done so often in the past, Ramirez calmly gazed back at him. Only the subtle violet shading of his cloak’s patterns gave any hint to his emotions. “In time, the hjadd may come here,” he went on. “For now, though, they’re waiting to learn what our response…humankind’s response…will be to the news of their existence.”
Shillinglaw had seen the images transmitted via hyperlink from Coyote: a bipedal form, vaguely human-shaped but definitely not human, hisher features rendered indistinct by the silver visor of the environmental suit heshe wore when heshe had come down Maria Celeste’s ramp. Despite repeated requests from various government leaders, though, the hjadd Prime Emissary had declined to reveal anything about himherself, aside from hisher long and elaborate name: Mahamatasja Jas Sa-Fhadda.
No one knew anything about himher. No one, at least, except these three.
“Anyone here going to tell me what happened?” Shillinglaw let out his breath. “You launched from here, successfully went through KX-1, made a quick survey of Eris, then set out to intercept Spindrift…and that was it. Last transmission from the Galileo was received June 4, 2288.”
“That pretty well summarizes it, yes,” Harker said dryly.
“It does?” Shillinglaw regarded him with skepticism. “Thirteen days ago, you came through the Coyote starbridge, claiming that the Galileo had been destroyed, the three of you were the only survivors, you’d been to a planet fifty-four light-years away…”
“Fifty light-y
ears.” Collins shyly raised a hand. “Pardon me, sir, but it’s fifty-four-point-four l.y.’s from Earth, but only fifty light-years from 47 Uma.” She hesitated, then added, “In another direction, that is.”
Obviously trying to hide his amusement, Harker coughed into his fist. “Excuse me…she’s right, yes. Fifty light-years.” Then he smiled. “Landed during the wedding reception for the president’s daughter. Afraid we caused something of a commotion.”
“She wasn’t too pleased.” Ramirez fought to keep from laughing and didn’t quite succeed. “But, hey, if we’d known, we would’ve baked a—”
“I don’t care.” Impatient with the way this was going, Shillinglaw turned toward Harker. “Commander, I’m glad you’re home, but…damn it, do you realize that you’re supposed to be dead? We wrote you off almost sixty years ago. And now you turn up, in”—he gestured in the general direction of the shuttle—“in this thing, which doesn’t even look like…”
“Right, yes.” Harker raised a placating hand. As he did, the patterns of his robe became a warm yellow; Shillinglaw found himself wondering why it did that. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s just that…we’ve been gone a long time, and everything takes getting used to.” He reached over to take Collins’s hand. She smiled, and casually rested her head against his shoulder. “But you’re correct,” he went on. “There’s a story to be told here. A rather long one…”
“I can only imagine.” Shillinglaw nodded. “Frankly, I’m envious. I wish I could have been there…”
“No, you don’t. Remember, we’re the only survivors. If you had been aboard the Galileo, you’d be dead by now.” Harker glanced at the others, and Shillinglaw saw that their expressions had become solemn. “Which is one of the reasons why we’ve come back, in fact. To deliver a message…and to give you something.”
“Oh? And what might that be?”
Harker reached into his robe, withdrew a small object: a data fiche. “It’s all here,” he said, holding it up for Shillinglaw to see. “Our final reports, along with logbooks, flight recorder transcripts, scientific data…the works.” Shillinglaw started to reach for it, but Harker pulled it back. “Don’t be so eager. You may not like what you’ll find.”
“Let me be the judge of that.” Shillinglaw held out his hand insistently. Harker hesitated, then extended the disk to him. “And the message?”
Harker nodded toward the disk. “Read this first. Then we’ll talk.”
PART ONE:
Transit of Centauri
ONE
APRIL 10, 2288—DOLLAND CENTRE, THE MOON
The lunar bus that met him at the prison landing field was driven by a pair of hard-faced Union Guard soldiers who didn’t speak to Shillinglaw any more than was necessary. As soon as he entered the vehicle via an accordion ramp that mated with the transport’s passenger hatch, they subjected him to a thorough inspection that began with a shoulders-to-shins pat-down and wand sweep and ended with his briefcase being opened and searched. His pen, wallet, pocket change, and watch were confiscated, as was his datapad, despite his protests. It wasn’t until the guards were satisfied that he was harmless that one of them went forward to the cab, partitioned by a wire-mesh screen, while the other sat on a bench across from Shillinglaw, gun in hand, saying nothing yet never letting his eyes wander from him.
Shillinglaw distracted himself by gazing out the window. The ride took only a few minutes, but it gave him a chance to take a quick look at the prison. At first glance, Dolland Centre Penal Colony resembled the ordinary lunar settlement that it had once been: lunox processing and wastewater treatment facilities, long banks of black photovoltaic cells, six-wheeled vehicles trundling across graded roads, with the low hills of the Descartes highlands rising in the background. It wasn’t until he noticed the fifteen-foot security fence with particle-beam lasers positioned every thirty feet that he was reminded that this place was a medium-to-maximum security prison. The European Alliance had one very much like it, near Mare Crisium, but somehow the Western Hemisphere Union’s version looked much more menacing. On the other hand, since Shillinglaw had never visited so much as a small-town jail, he didn’t know quite what to expect.
The bus approached Dolland crater itself, a grey wall of rock looming against the pitch-black sky, light seeping from thin slits along its sloping flanks. The driver slowed down to a crawl; the vehicle’s inflated wheels bumped slightly as they moved onto a mooncrete ramp, then the bus began rolling downward toward a pair of double doors. The bus entered the subsurface airlock and came to a halt. The doors shut, and there was a rush of grey silt around the windows as electrostatic scrubbers rinsed moon dust from the vehicle, then a loud roar while the chamber was pressurized. Another pause, during which Shillinglaw presumed the bus was being scanned, then a second pair of doors rumbled open and the transporter was permitted to go the rest of the way inside.
A short, slender gentleman dressed in a collarless business suit was waiting for Shillinglaw in the underground garage. “Welcome to Dolland,” he said, stepping forward to introduce himself as Shillinglaw came down the ladder. “I’m Rubin Torres, the warden. And you’re Mr. Shillinglaw, I presume?”
“John, please. Call me John.” Shillinglaw grasped the other man’s hand. “I assume, of course, my government has already been in touch with yours.”
“Of course. Otherwise, you couldn’t be here.” Not wouldn’t, but couldn’t; Shillinglaw noticed the subtle way Torres shaded his choice of words. Indeed, the warden seemed faintly amused by Shillinglaw’s belaboring the obvious. “We don’t welcome casual visitors,” he went on, a whisper of a smile touching the corners of his mouth, “and Inmate 7668 is someone to whom we pay very close attention.”
“I’m sure you do.” And you damn well should, he added silently. Shillinglaw turned to glance at the soldiers who’d driven him there. “Not to make a point of it, but…the man on the right has taken away my pad. I understand this is a normal precaution, but…”
“No, you can’t. Not until you leave.” Torres looked down at his briefcase. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d leave that with us. You’ll have everything back before you go, but we insist that we hold your belongings while you’re here.”
Shillinglaw’s first impulse was to argue, but common sense told him to restrain himself. It had taken an extraordinary amount of negotiation, at the top levels of government, before the Union had reluctantly consented to allowing the associate director of the European Space Agency to pay a visit to one of its most infamous convicts. Now that he was so close to seeing him, Shillinglaw couldn’t afford to screw things up by refusing to abide by security procedures. Nonetheless, there were things he carried with him that were vital to this meeting.
“You can have the briefcase,” he said, “but I need the papers inside.” He hesitated. “That’s not too much to ask, is it? Especially since you insist on keeping my pad as well.”
Torres said nothing for a moment, yet Shillinglaw could tell that wheels were turning in his mind. “May I examine the papers, please?”
“With all due respect…no, sir, you may not.” Torres’s eyes narrowed with suspicion as Shillinglaw went on. “As you yourself observed, this isn’t a casual visit. I’m here on business urgent to both our governments, and the material I’m carrying has been classified. If you need to consult with higher authorities…”
“That I will.”
“If you must…but I’ll warn you that you’re just asking for trouble. And if you so much as look at my papers…”
“He won’t,” a voice said from behind them.
Unnoticed by either of them, another person had quietly emerged from a nearby elevator, a heavyset man in his mid-fifties, with a receding hairline above a ruddy, pockmarked face. Shillinglaw didn’t know him, but Torres obviously did, for he stiffened and quickly stepped back.
“Mr. Sinclair…I thought you were still in my office.” Torres’s demeanor instantly changed. “Allow me to introduce you to John Shillinglaw, ass
ociate director for…”
“I already know who he is.” Sinclair sauntered over to them, hands clasped behind his back. “Thanks for the drink, Warden Torres, but as Mr. Shillinglaw says, we’re on urgent business.” He extended a hand to Shillinglaw. “Donald Sinclair. Senior representative for the Council of Patriarchs.”
Oh, bloody hell, Shillinglaw thought as he grasped his hand. He spotted the small enamel pin fastened to Sinclair’s lapel: the two overlapping circles of social collectivism. This guy’s a political officer. “Pleased to meet you, señor.”
“Likewise.” Sinclair favored him with the briefest of smiles, then he returned his attention to Torres. “Mr. Torres, I expect you to respect our guest’s privacy. Please return his property to him, and allow him to retain his papers. I’ll personally take responsibility.”
Anger burned in Torres’s eyes, and for a moment he seemed to bite his lower lip, yet he reluctantly nodded. “As you wish, Mr. Sinclair.” He looked at Shillinglaw. “Remove your papers, please, and give the briefcase to me.” Then he glanced at the soldiers. “Which of you has his pad? Give it back to him.”
The Guardsman who’d confiscated Shillinglaw’s belongings stepped forward, producing the pad from a thigh pocket of his uniform. Shillinglaw put it in his jacket pocket, then pressed a forefinger against his briefcase’s verification plate and opened it. “My apologies,” Torres said as Shillinglaw removed a manila folder from the case and shut it again, “but we have to exercise certain precautions. Anything that might conceivably be used to carry in a weapon…”
“I understand perfectly.” He almost felt sorry for Torres. Any other time, he might be lord of this particular domain, yet in the presence of a political officer he’d been reduced to little more than a mere turnkey. “All I want to do is cooperate.”