“In our part of the galaxy, maybe,” Liol said. “What’s the hydrogen density in space between a red giant and a nebula?”
“Good point. That could mean they’re in contact with the closest colony stars.” He didn’t believe it; there was some missing factor here. What would be the reason to travel to a nearby star? You couldn’t trade over interstellar distances, not with slower-than-light ships. And given your destination would have the same technology and society as your departure point, what could be traded anyway? Any differences or technological improvements that sprung up over the millennia could be shared by communication laser. “Hey,” he exclaimed. “Parker?”
“Yes, Joshua?” the old director responded.
“We thought the reason for Tanjuntic-RI losing contact with Mastrit-PJ was because civilization failed here. It hasn’t. So why did they go off-air?”
“I have no idea. Perhaps one of the colony worlds relaying the messages round the nebula collapsed.”
“A Tyrathca society failed? Isn’t that a bit unlikely?”
“Or it was killed off,” Monica said. “I’d like to think the enslaved xenocs finally rebelled and wiped them out.”
“Possible.” Joshua wasn’t convinced. I’m missing something obvious.
Lady Mac fell through the plane of the disk. It was a deliberate overshoot, allowing them to see Tojolt-HI’s sunside. Here, at last, they found the invariable conformity they’d grown to expect from the Tyrathca.
On this half of the disk, every tube section was made from glass; a trillion corrugations held together by black reinforcement hoops like the roof of God’s greenhouse. Light evaporating from the photosphere below was thick enough to qualify as a crimson haze; it gusted against the diskcity, only to be rebuffed by the burnished surface in copper ripples longer than planetary crescents. This was a hint of how sunset over eternity’s ocean would appear.
“Jesus,” Joshua crooned. “I guess this makes up for Tanjuntic-RI.”
They held position for several minutes with every sensor boom extended to gather in the scene, then Joshua reluctantly fired the secondary drive rockets to bring them back into the disk plane and back towards the rim. He locked Lady Mac ’s position in the coordinate Anthi-CL had given them, and initiated a barbecue roll. The starship’s thermo dump panels were spread out to their full extent, glimmering cherry red whenever they turned into shadow.
As soon as Sarha confirmed their on-board heat exchangers could handle the sun’s heat, Joshua opened a direct communication channel to the Anthi-CL dominion.
“I would like to speak with Quantook-LOU,” he said.
The reply came back almost immediately. “I speak.”
“Again, I thank the Anthi-CL dominion for receiving us. We look forward to beginning a prosperous exchange, and hope that it will be the first of many between our respective species.” Make them believe that others will be coming, he thought; that implies any forceful action on their part would ultimately have to be accounted for. Pretty unlikely given the scale of things around here, but they don’t know that.
“We too have that anticipation,” Quantook-LOU said. “That is an interesting ship you fly, Captain Calvert. We have not seen its like before. Those of us who disputed your claimed origin no longer do so. Is it a subsidiary vessel of your starship, or did you cross interstellar space in it?”
Joshua gave his brother a disconcerted look. “Even if this translation program is getting creative on me, they’re not responding like any Tyrathca I know about.”
“That’s a leading question, too,” Samuel cautioned. “If you confirm we travelled round the nebula in Lady Macbeth they’ll know we have faster-than-light travel.”
“And they’ll want it,” Beaulieu said. “If we’re right about the pressure on local resources, it’s their escape route out past the surrounding colony worlds.”
“No it’s not,” Ashly said. “I lived through the Great Dispersal, remember. We couldn’t even shift five per cent of Earth’s population when we really needed to. ZTT isn’t an escape route, not even with the industrial capacity of a diskcity. Everything is relative. They could build enough ships in a year to transport billions of breeder pairs away from Mastrit-PJ, but they’d still be left with thousands of billions living in the diskcities. All of whom would be busy laying more eggs.”
“It might not solve their problem, but it would certainly give star systems where they propose to settle one hell of a headache,” Liol said. “We’ve seen what they’ll do to aboriginal species occupying real estate they want.”
Joshua held up a hand. “I get the picture, thank you. Though I think we have to consider ZTT technology as our ultimate purchasing power to get the Sleeping God’s location. The Hesperi-LN Tyrathca already have ZTT. It might take decades to reach Mastrit-PJ, but it will spread here eventually.”
“Try not to,” Monica said forcefully. “Try very hard.”
Joshua held her stare as he reopened the channel to Quantook-LOU. “The nature of our ship is one of the items of knowledge we can discuss as part of the exchange. Perhaps you would like to list the areas of science and technology you have the most interest in acquiring.”
“What areas do you excel in?”
Joshua frowned. “Wrong,” he mouthed to his crew. “This is not a Tyrathca.”
“I agree, this is not a response I would expect from one,” Samuel said.
“Then what?” Sarha asked.
“Let’s find out,” Joshua said. “Quantook-LOU, I think we should start slowly. As a gesture of good faith, I would like to give you a gift. We might then start to exchange our histories. Once we understand each other’s background we should have a better idea where useful exchanges can be made. Are you agreeable to this?”
“In principle, yes. What is your gift?”
“An electronic processor. It is a standard work tool among humans; the design and composition may be of interest to you. If so, duplication would be a simple matter.”
“I accept your gift.”
“I will bring it to you. I am eager to see the inside of Tojolt-HI. It is an astonishing achievement.”
“Thank you. Can you dock your starship to one of our ports? We do not have a suitable ship to collect you from your present position.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Liol said. “They can build habitats the size of continents, but not commuter taxis.”
“We have a small shuttle craft we can use to reach the port,” Joshua said. “We will remain in spacesuits while we are inside Anthi-CL to avoid biological contamination.”
“Is a direct physical encounter between our species dangerous?”
“Not if adequate precautions are taken. Our species is very experienced in this field. Please don’t be alarmed.”
Joshua piloted the MSV himself, ignoring Ashly’s snide remarks about union rules. It was cramped in the little cabin; Samuel and Oski came with him, as well as a serjeant (just in case). He had to promise the others a rota for visiting the diskcity, everyone had wanted to come.
The port which Quantook-LOU had designated was a fat bulb of grey-white metal four hundred metres across, which flared out from the end of a web tube. Its apex was taken up by a circular hatch seventy-five metres in diameter, open to show a dimly-lit interior.
“Looks like one big empty chamber in there,” Joshua said. He fired the thrusters carefully, edging the little craft inside. Gentle red light shone from long strips that curved round the walls like fluorescent ribs. Between them were rows of almost-human machinery. It put him in mind of the docking craters in Tranquillity’s spaceport.
Directly opposite the main outer hatch was a stubby cylindrical grid, with much smaller airlock hatches at the far end. Joshua steered the MSV towards it.
“Your datavise carrier is starting to break up,” Sarha reported.
“That’s to be expected, though a good host would offer us a constant link. We’ll start to worry if they actually shut that hatch.”
&
nbsp; The MSV reached the top of the cylindrical grid. Joshua extended one of the vehicle’s waldo arms to grip it in the clamp. “We’re secure,” he reported, using the band to Quantook-LOU.
“Please proceed to the airlock ahead of you. I await on the other side.”
Joshua and the others fastened their space armour helmets into place. They assumed the Tyrathca didn’t have programmable silicon, so they wouldn’t know about SII suits. The armour would appear to be their actual spacesuit, reducing the risk of offending their hosts at the same time providing a degree of protection. The MSV’s cabin atmosphere cycled and the four of them slid out.
There were three airlock hatches at the end of the grid. Only one of them, the largest, was open. The chamber behind was a sphere six metres across.
“Those other hatches were too small for the breeders,” Samuel said. “I wonder if one of the vassal caste has been bred for a higher IQ; they certainly weren’t capable of useful engineering work before.”
Joshua didn’t reply. He stuck his boots to what could have been the chamber floor just as the atmospheric gas started to hiss in. Suit sensors told him was a composition of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, argon, and various hydrocarbon compounds, the humidity level was very high, and there were several classes of organic particulate in circulation. He made a strong effort to keep his hand away from the innocuous-looking cylinder on his belt which was actually a laser.
Strangely, he felt no excitement at this moment. It was almost as if there was too much riding on it for him to take anything other than an objective view. A good thing, he supposed.
The inner hatch opened, revealing one of Tojolt-HI’s wider habitation tubes dwindling away to a flat metal bulkhead a kilometre away. Two colours dominated the interior: red and brown. Joshua smiled round his suit’s respirator tube as he saw the cluster of xenocs waiting for him. They weren’t Tyrathca.
First impression was a shoal of human-size seahorses floating cautiously in the air. They had that same kind of flowing twitch along the length of their body, as if forever poised at the start of a race. Their colouring was almost black, though Joshua suspected that was due to the unvarying red light; sensor spectral analysis showed their scales were actually a shade of dark grey-brown very close to the Tyrathca, suggesting a common Mastrit-PJ ancestry. The head was pointed, dragon-like, with a long beak-mouth and two small semi-recessed eyes. It was held almost at a right angle to the body by a heavily wrinkled neck, suggesting considerable flexibility. The rest of the body had an ovoid cross section that gradually tapered away towards the base, though there was no sign of any tail. It curved slightly, producing an overall S-shape. Three pairs of limbs were spaced equidistantly along it, all sharing the same basic profile: a long first section extending away from a shoulder-analogue socket and ending in a wrist joint. The hand appendage was elongated with nine twin-knuckle digits. On the highest set of limbs they were thin and highly dextrous; the middle set were smaller and thicker; while the hindset were stumpy, toes rather than fingers. On most of the xenocs the hind feet appeared to be withered; becoming simple paddles of flesh, as though they were borrowed from aquatic creatures.
It was an appropriate classification. Every surface inside the tube sprouted lengthy ribbon fronds of rubbery vegetation, all of them reaching up for the geometric centre. Even those planted in the glass were growing directly away from the light, something Joshua had never seen on any terracompatible world he’d visited, no matter how bizarre some of its aboriginal botany and biochemistry.
The constant tangle of vegetation along the inside of the tube did however make movement very easy for the xenocs. They seemed to glide along effortlessly through the topmost fringe, with the lower half of their bodies immersed in the brown fronds, their limbs wriggling gently to control their motion. It was a wonderfully graceful action resulting from what was essentially a mad combination of the smooth flick of a dolphin flipper and a human hand slapping at grab hoops.
Joshua admired it with mild envy, at the same time wondering just how long evolution would take to produce that kind of arrangement. It was almost a case of symbiosis, which meant the fronds of vegetation would have to be very prevalent.
He couldn’t doubt these xenocs were intelligent beyond any Tyrathca vassal class the Confederation had encountered. They wore electronic systems like clothes. The upper half of their bodies were covered in a garment that combined a string vest with bandolier straps to which various modules were clipped, interspersed with tools and small canisters. They also went in for exoaugmentation; lenses jutted out of eye sockets, while plenty of them had replaced upper-limb hands with cybernetic claws.
Joshua switched his sensor focus around them until he found one whose electronics seemed slightly better quality than the others. Their styling was more slimline, with elegant key pads and displays. Some of the modules were actually embossed with marmoreal patterns. A fast spectrographic scan said the metal was iron. Curious choice, he thought.
“I am Captain Joshua Calvert, and I apologize to Quantook-LOU,” he said. The communication block relayed his words into the hooting whistles of Tyrathca-style speech, which he could just make out through the muffling of the SII suit’s silicon. “We assumed the Tyrathca occupied this place.”
The creature his sensors were focused on opened its gnarled beak and chittered loudly. “Do you wish to leave now you have found it is otherwise?”
“Not at all. We are delighted to have gained the knowledge of your existence. Could you tell me what you call yourselves?”
“My race is the Mosdva. For all of Tyrathca history we were their subjects. Their history has ended. Mastrit-PJ is our star now.”
“Way to go,” Monica said over the general communication band.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Syrinx admonished. “They’re clearly from the same evolutionary chain.”
“Relevant observations only,” Joshua told them. “I mean, do we even need to carry on? We can be diplomatic here for a couple of hours, then fly off to the nearest probable Tyrathca colony star to get what we need.”
“They have the same language and origin planet,” Parker said. “It’s highly probable they share the same stellar almanac. We need to know a lot more before we even consider moving on.”
“Okay.” Joshua datavised his communication block back to its translation function. “You have achieved much here. My race has never built any structure on such a scale as Tojolt-HI.”
“But you have built a most interesting ship.”
“Thank you.” He took a processor block from his belt slowly and carefully. It was one that he’d found in Lady Mac ’s engineering workshop, a quarter of a century out of date and loaded with obsolete maintenance programs (they’d erased any reference to starflight). The general management routine might be of some interest to the xenocs, especially from what he could see of their own electronics. In fact, it might be a slightly too generous gift; half of their modules would have been archaic back in the Twenty-third Century. “For you,” he told Quantook-LOU.
One of the other Mosdva slithered forwards through the foliage and gingerly took the block before hurrying back to Quantook-LOU. The distributor of resources examined it before putting it in a pouch near the bottom of his torso garment.
“I thank you, Captain Joshua Calvert. In return, I would show you this section of Anthi-CL, of which you have expressed such interest.”
“Was that cynicism?” Joshua asked his people.
“I don’t think so,” Oski said. “The Tyrathca language as we know it doesn’t have the carrier mechanism for that kind of nuance. It can’t, because they don’t have cynicism.”
“Might be a good idea to keep the analysis program watching for those kind of patterns emerging.”
“I’ll second that,” Samuel said. “They’ve been bombarding us with sensor probes from the second that hatch opened. They’re clearly looking for an advantage. This kind of mercantile behaviour is thankfully easy to appr
eciate. It almost makes them human.”
“Wonderful. Sixteen thousand light years, and all we get to meet is the local equivalent of the Kulu Traders Association.”
“Joshua, your first priority is to understand exactly what position Quantook-LOU has within their social structure,” Parker said. “Once that is known, we’ll be able to proceed quickly to a resolution. Their culture is plainly developed along different lines from the Tyrathca, though I’m happy to say the basics of trade apparently remain a fundamental.”
“Yes, thank you, Mr Director.” And I wonder if he understands cynicism. “I would be honoured to see your dominion,” Joshua told the Mosdva.
“Accompany us, then. I will enlighten you.”
The whole Mosdva group turned, virtually in unison, and began their sliding glide along the vegetation. Joshua, who considered himself highly proficient in freefall conditions, was fascinated by the manoeuvre. There was a lot of torque and inertia involved with such a move; their mid-limbs must apply a lot of pressure to the fronds. And the fronds themselves must be stronger than they looked; try tugging a terrestrial palm like that and you’d rip it in half.
He cancelled the tak pad application on his boot soles and kicked off after them. Ultimately, he cheated, using the cold gas jets of his armour’s manoeuvring pack as well as climbing a frond like a rope. When he reached the upper fringes, the fronds now did their best to impede his progress; where they parted for any Mosdva, they formed elastic nets for him. The best method, he found, was to stay above their tips altogether, and reach down as necessary to swing yourself along. Gauntlet tactile sensors reported the vegetation was spongy, but with a solid spine.
Out of the four of them, he was the most agile, though he struggled to keep up with Quantook-LOU. And the serjeant’s motions were plain painful to watch; Ione had not ventured into Tranquillity’s zero-gee sections very often.
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