The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF

by Mike Ashley

  They did, and I started my timer. With the lines to the bridge dead I was going to have to rely on the image movements to let me know when the first part of the maneuver was over; moving the Ming metal around the ship while we were at the wrong end of our rotation or – worse – while we were still moving would probably end our chances of getting back for good. Mindful of the pranks cascade points could play on a person’s time sense, I’d had Pascal calculate the approximate times each rotation would take. Depending on how accurate they turned out to be, they might simply let me limit how soon I started worrying.

  It wasn’t a pleasant wait. On the bridge, I had various duties to perform; here, I didn’t have even that much distraction from the ghosts surrounding me. Sitting next to the humming neural tracer, I watched the images flicker in and out, white uniforms dos-à-dosing with the coveralls and the gaps.

  Ghosts. Haunted. I’d never seriously thought of them like that before, but now I found I couldn’t see them in any other way. I imagined I could see knowing smiles on the liner captains’ faces, or feel a coldness from the gaps where I’d died. Pure autosuggestion, of course . . . and yet, it forced me for probably the first time to consider what exactly the images were doing to me.

  They were making me chronically discontented with my life.

  My first reaction to such an idea was to immediately justify my resentment. I’d been cheated out of the chance to be a success in my field; trapped at the bottom of the heap by idiots who ranked political weaselcraft higher than flying skill. I had a right to feel dumped on.

  And yet . . .

  My watch clicked at me: the first rotation should be about over. I reset it and waited, watching the images. With agonizing slowness they came to a stop . . . and then started moving again in what I could persuade myself was the opposite direction. I started my watch again and let my eyes defocus a bit. The next time the dance stopped, it would be time to move Lanton’s damn coil to the hold and bring my ship back to normal.

  My ship. I listened to the way the words echoed around my brain. My ship. No liner captain owned his own ship. He was an employee, like any other in the company; forever under the basilisk eye of those selfsame idiots who’d fired me once for doing my job. The space junk being sparser and all that aside, would I really have been happier in a job like that? Would I have enjoyed being caught between management on one hand and upper-crusty passengers on the other? Enjoyed, hell – would I have survived it? For the first time in ten years I began to wonder if perhaps Lord Hendrik had known what he was doing when he booted me out of his company.

  Deliberately, I searched out the white uniforms far off to my left and watched as they popped in and out of different slots in the long line. Perhaps that was why there were so few of them. I thought suddenly; perhaps, even while I was pretending otherwise, I’d been smart enough to make decisions that had kept me out of the running for that particular treadmill. The picture that created made me smile: my subconscious chasing around with secret memos, hiding basic policy matters from my righteously indignant conscious mind.

  The click of my watch made me jump. Taking a deep breath, I picked up a screwdriver from the tool pouch laid out beside the neutral tracer and gave my full attention to the images. Slow . . . slower . . . stopped. I waited a full two minutes to make sure, then flipped off the tracer and got to work.

  I’d had plenty of practice in the past in the past two days, but it still took me nearly five minutes to extricate the coil from the maze of equipment surrounding it. That was no particular problem – we’d allowed seven minutes for the disassembly – but I was still starting to sweat as I got to my feet and headed for the door.

  And promptly fell on my face.

  Alana’s reference to enhanced vertigo apart, I hadn’t expected anything that strong quite as soon. Swallowing hard, I tried to ignore the feeling of lying on a steep hill and crawled toward the nearest wall. Using it as a support, I got to my feet, waited for the cabin to stop spinning, and shuffled over to the door. Fortunately, all the doors between me and One Hold had been locked open, so I didn’t have to worry about getting to the release. Still shuffling, I maneuvered through the opening and started down the corridor, moving as quickly as I could. The trip – fifteen meters of corridor, a circular stairway down, five more meters of corridor, and squeezing through One Hold’s cargo to get to the shield – normally took less than three minutes. We’d allowed ten; but already I could see that was going to be tight. I kept my eyes on the wall beside me and concentrated on moving my feet . . . which was probably why I was nearly to the stairway before I noticed the kaleidoscope dance my cascade images were doing.

  While the ship was at rest.

  I stopped short, the pattern shifts ceasing as I did so. The thing I had feared most about this whole trick was happening: moving the Ming metal was changing our real angle in Colloton space.

  I don’t know how long I leaned there with the sweat trickling down my forehead, but it was probably no more than a minute before I forced myself to get moving again. There were now exactly two responses Alana could make: go on to the endpoint Lanton had just memorized, or try and compensate somehow for the shift I was causing. The former course felt intuitively wrong, but the latter might well be impossible to do – and neither had any particular mathematical backing that Chileogu had been able to find. For me, the worst part of it was the fact that I was now completely out of the decision process. No matter how fast I got the coil locked away, there was no way I was going to make it back up two flights of stairs to the bridge. Like everyone else on board, I was just going to have to trust Alana’s judgment.

  I slammed into the edge of the stairway opening, nearly starting my downward trip headfirst before I got a grip on the railing. The coil, jarred from my sweaty hand, went on ahead of me, clanging like a muffled bell as it bounced to the deck below. I followed a good deal more slowly, the writhing images around me adding to my vertigo. By now, the rest of my body was also starting to react to the stress, and I had to stop every few steps as a wave of nausea or fatigue washed over me. It seemed forever before I finally reached the bottom of the stairs. The coil had rolled to the middle of the corridor; retrieving it on hands and knees, I got back to the wall and hauled myself to my feet. I didn’t dare look at my watch.

  The cargo hold was the worst part yet. The floor was swaying freely by then, like an ocean vessel in heavy seas, and through the reddish haze surrounding me, the stacks of boxes I staggered between seemed ready to hurl themselves down upon my head. I don’t remember how many times I shied back from what appeared to be a breaking wave of crates, only to slam into the stack behind me. Finally, though, I made it to the open area in front of the shield door. I was halfway across the gap, moving again on hands and knees, when my watch sounded the one-minute warning. With a desperate lunge, I pushed myself up and forward, running full tilt into the Ming-metal wall. More from good luck than anything else, my free hand caught the handle; and as I fell backwards the door swung open. For a moment I hung there, trying to get my trembling muscles to respond. Then, slowly, I got my feet under me and stood up. Reaching through the opening, I let go of the coil and watched it drop into the gap between two boxes. The hold was swaying more and more violently now; timing my move carefully, I shoved on the handle and collapsed to the deck. The door slammed shut with a thunderclap that tried to take the top of my head with it. I hung on just long enough to see that the door was indeed closed, and then gave in to the darkness.

  I’m told they found me sleeping with my back against the shield door, making sure it couldn’t accidentally come open.

  I was lying on my back when I came to, and the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was Kate Epstein’s face. “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Fine,” I told her, frowning as I glanced around. This wasn’t my cabin . . . With a start I recognized the humming in my ear. “What the hell am I doing in Lanton’s cabin?” I growled.

  Kate shrugged and reache
d over my shoulder, shutting off the neural tracer. “We needed Dr Lanton’s neural equipment, and the tracer wasn’t supposed to be moved. A variant of the mountain/Mohammed problem, I guess you could say.”

  I grunted. “How’d the point maneuver go? Was Alana able to figure out a correction factor?”

  “It went perfectly well,” Alana’s voice came from my right. I turned my head, to find her sitting next to the door. “I think we’re out of the woods now, Pall – that four-point-four physical rotation turned out to be more like nine point one once the coil was out of the way. If Chileogu’s right about reversibility applying here, we should be back in our own universe now. I guess we won’t know for sure until we go through the next point and reach Earth.”

  “Is that nine point one with or without a correction factor?” I asked, my stomach tightening in anticipation. We might not be out of the woods quite yet.

  “No correction needed,” she said. “The images on the bridge stayed rock-steady the whole time.”

  “But . . . 7 saw them shifting.”

  “Yes, you told us that. Our best guess – excuse me; Pascal’s best guess – is that you were getting that because you were moving relative to the field generator, that if you’d made a complete loop around it you would’ve come back to the original cascade pattern again. Chileogu’s trying to prove that mathematically, but I doubt he’ll be able to until he gets to better facilities.”

  “Uh-huh.” Something wasn’t quite right here. “You say I told you about the images? When?”

  Alana hesitated, looked at Kate. “Actually, Captain,” the doctor said gently, “you’ve been conscious quite a bit during the past four days. The reason you don’t remember any of it is that the connection between your short-term and long-term memories got a little scrambled – probably another effect of your jaunt across all those field lines. It looks like that part’s healed itself, though, so you shouldn’t have any more memory problems.”

  “Oh, great. What sort of problems will I have more of?”

  “Nothing major. You might have balance difficulties for a while, and you’ll likely have a mild migraine or two within the next couple of weeks. But indications are that all of it is very temporary.”

  I looked back at Alana. “Four days. We’ll need to set up our last calibration run soon.”

  “All taken care of,” she assured me. “We’re turning around later today to get our velocity vector pointing back toward Taimyr again, and we’ll be able to do the run tomorrow.”

  “Who’s going to handle it?”

  “Who do you think?” she snorted. “Rik, Lanton, and me, with maybe some help from Pascal.”

  I’d known that answer was coming, but it still made my mouth go dry. “No way,” I told her, struggling to sit up. “You aren’t going to go through this hell. I can manage – ”

  “Ease up, Pall,” Alana interrupted me. “Weren’t you paying attention? The real angle doesn’t drift when the Ming metal is moved, and that means we can shut down the field generator while I’m taking the coil from here to One Hold again.”

  I sank back onto the bed, feeling foolish. “Oh. Right.”

  Getting to her feet, Alana came over to me and patted my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said in a kinder tone. “We’ve got things under control. You’ve done the hard part; just relax and let us do the rest.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, trying to hide my misgivings.

  It was just as well that I did. Thirty-eight hours later Alana used our last gram of fuel in a flawless bit of flying that put us into a deep Earth orbit. The patrol boats that had responded to her emergency signal were waiting there, loaded with the fuel we would need to land.

  Six hours after that, we were home.

  They checked me into a hospital, just to be on the safe side, and the next four days were filled with a flurry of tests, medical interviews, and bumpy wheelchair rides. Surprisingly – to me, anyway – I was also nailed by two media types who wanted the more traditional type of interview. Apparently, the Dancer’s trip to elsewhere and back was getting a fair amount of publicity. Just how widespread the coverage was, though, I didn’t realize until my last day there, when an official-looking CompNote was delivered to my room.

  It was from Lord Hendrik.

  I snapped the sealer and unfolded the paper. The first couple of paragraphs – the greetings, congratulations on my safe return, and such – I skipped over quickly, my eyes zeroing in on the business portion of the letter:

  As you may or may not know, I have recently come out of semi-retirement to serve on the Board of Directors of TranStar Enterprises, headquartered here in Nairobi. With excellent contacts both in Africa and in the so-called Black Colony chain, our passenger load is expanding rapidly, and we are constantly on the search for experienced and resourceful pilots we can entrust them to. The news reports of your recent close call brought you to my mind again after all these years, and I thought you might be interested in discussing –

  A knock on the door interrupted my reading. “Come in,” I called, looking up.

  It was Alana. “Hi, Pall, how are you doing?” she asked, walking over to the bed and giving me a brief once-over. In one hand she carried a slender plastic portfolio.

  “Bored silly,” I told her. “I think I’m about ready to check out – they’ve finished all the standard tests without finding anything, and I’m tired of lying around while they dream up new ones.”

  “What a shame,” she said with mock sorrow. “And after I brought you all this reading material, too.” She hefted the portfolio.

  “What is it, your resignation?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light. There was no point making this any more painful for either of us than necessary.

  But she just frowned. “Don’t be silly. It’s a whole batch of new contracts I’ve picked up for us in the past few days. Some really good ones, too, from name corporations. I think people are starting to see what a really good carrier we are.”

  I snorted. “Aside from the thirty-six or whatever penalty clauses we invoked on this trip?”

  “Oh, that’s all in here too. The Swedish Institute’s not even going to put up a fight – they’re paying off everything, including your hospital bills and the patrol’s rescue fee. Probably figured Lanton’s glitch was going to make them look bad enough without them trying to chisel us out of damages, too.” She hesitated, and an odd expression flickered across her face. “Were you really expecting me to jump ship?”

  “I was about eighty per cent sure,” I said, fudging my estimate down about nineteen points. “After all, this is where Rik Bradley’s going to be, and you . . . rather like him. Don’t you?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know what I feel for him, to be perfectly honest. I like him, sure – like him a lot. But my life’s out there” – she gestured skyward – “and I don’t think I can give that up for anyone. At least, not for him.”

  “You could take a leave of absence,” I told her, feeling like a prize fool but determined to give her every possible option. “Maybe once you spend some real time on a planet, you’d find you like it.”

  “And maybe I wouldn’t,” she countered. “And when I decided I’d had enough, where would the Dancer be? Probably nowhere I’d ever be able to get to you.” She looked me straight in the eye and all traces of levity vanished from her voice. “Like I told you once before, Pall, I can’t afford to lose any of my friends.”

  I took a deep breath and carefully let it out. “Well. I guess that’s all settled. Good. Now, if you’ll be kind enough to tell the nurse out by the monitor station that I’m signing out, I’ll get dressed and we’ll get back to the ship.”

  “Great. It’ll be good to have you back.” Smiling, she disappeared out into the corridor.

  Carefully, I got my clothes out of the closet and began putting them on, an odd mixture of victory and defeat settling into my stomach. Alana was staying with the Dancer, which was certainly what I’d wanted . . . and yet, I couldn’
t help but feel that in some ways her decision was more a default than a real, active choice. Was she coming back because she wanted to, or merely because we were a safer course than the set of unknowns that Bradley offered? If the latter, it was clear that her old burns weren’t entirely healed; that she still had a way – maybe a long ways – to go. But that was all right. I may not have had the talent she did for healing bruised souls, but if time and distance were what she needed, the Dancer and I could supply her with both.

  I was just sealing my boots when Alana returned. “Finished? Good. They’re getting your release ready, so let’s go. Don’t forget your letter,” she added, pointing at Lord Hendrik’s CompNote.

  “This? It’s nothing,” I told her, crumpling it up and tossing it toward the waste basket. “Just some junk mail from an old admirer.”

  Six months later, on our third point out from Prima, a new image of myself in liner captain’s white appeared in my cascade pattern. I looked at it long and hard . . . and then did something I’d never done before for such an image.

  I wished it lots of luck.

  A DANCE TO STRANGE MUSICS

  Gregory Benford

  Two of the great core themes of science fiction are the first-contact story and the problem story. In this story, you get both. It’s one thing trying to solve a seemingly unsolvable or intractable problem, but when that problem takes place on an especially unusual alien world, the solution – if there is one – is even more complex, but no less fascinating.

  Gregory Benford (b. 1941) is a professor of physics at the University of California, Irvine, specializing in plasma turbulence and astrophysics. He advises NASA on national space policy and has been heavily involved in the Mars exploration programme. His novels, The Martian Race (1999) and The Sunborn (2005), are generally regarded as amongst the most authentic considerations of the race to and exploration of Mars. In 1995 he received the prestigious Lord Foundation award for scientific achievement.