The New Space Opera 2

by Gardner Dozois

  “But dealing with some rebel Pilot—”

  “Hush, for God’s sake. You want to bring the proctors back?”

  The husband tightens his lips. At a guess, he’s enumerating the possibilities: the whole deal might be a scam; there might indeed be one or more Pilots willing to break the embargo they’re obliged to obey; or it might be a Zajinet ship. They’re the only alien species to have mu-space travel. While they sometimes maintain embassies on human worlds, their relationship with Pilots includes violent incidents stopping just short of all-out war.

  Marina. Thinking of Pilots. Will I ever see you again?

  He’s just had his chance. If she were to return, he’d hide away again.

  Remember Graduation.

  Bitterness is not helping. Concentrating on his surroundings might be more useful.

  “Five minutes to detachment.”

  The fake priest with the real facial scars is approaching the view window. Carl mentally labels him Scarface, which is unkind but specific, a way of keeping track of who is where.

  “Hey, pretty clouds.” Scarface turns to the children, pulling his lips back into a predatory rictus. “You kids like it here?”

  The family draws away.

  “What are you looking at?” Scarface has shifted his attention to Carl. “You got a problem, my son?”

  Oh, shit.

  “Er…No.”

  “Good. ’Cause I’m enjoying the pretty view, which is like God’s unfolding pattern, got it?”

  He laughs. Dread floods through Carl.

  He’s a psychopath.

  In his priest’s collar, Scarface is wearing a crossed-winzip icon, symbol of the Church of the Incompressible Algorithm. They believe cosmic history must be played out in order to create God. They don’t employ clergy like this. Carl hopes that Scarface and his buddies simply bought fake clothing, because the alternative is a group of priestly corpses decomposing inside shielded quickglass, or dropped into the sulfuric acid ocean below the clouds.

  “Three minutes to detachment.”

  The psycho priest turns back to the view. Perhaps he does enjoy it. Carl backs away, returns to the place where he hid before, and signals gotta-pee. Once more, the quickglass pulls apart, forming a chamber. He steps inside, waits for it to seal up, for the facilities to solidify in place, then splashes scented cleanser on his face.

  He stares at himself in the mirrorfield. In his late twenties, he should not show stress lines like this. For a moment, he looks like Mr. Shifty.

  I’m losing track of who I am.

  And that is the danger, the psychological paradox of knowing that he is someone who cannot know who he is.

  Shit shit shit.

  He doesn’t want to go ahead with this voyage. He could bug out now and go back to reviewing student assignments, working with the Tech-Net’s Emergent Persona to improve the—

  “For God’s sake.”

  His left hand has risen to his eye almost without volition. Becoming aware, he allows the motion to continue, pressing against his eyeball. He hates doing this.

  The lens comes off, adhering to his fingertip.

  Remember the truth.

  His revealed eye is glistening obsidian, a drop of shining darkness staring back. Devoid of white, pure black-on-black, the way he is meant to be. He removes the second lens.

  Remember.

  He stares, centering himself.

  “All right.”

  Then he dabs his lenses back into place, ready to resume pretense.

  So magnificent, the galactic center. A billion stars are watching as he pees inside his quickglass layer, release and absorption, tiny amid vastness. Laughable or cosmically significant, he cannot tell.

  My love.

  Memory, so detailed and treacherous, lives in his mind. The mundane years in Vertigo, the times of wonder preceding them. So many episodes like fractal jewels, the potentiation of his past life as encoded molecules—no human memory is lost.

  So many occasions that make up a life.

  Pick one.

  There were one hundred and seventy-three of them, all of them shit-scared. Aged between seventeen and nineteen standard years, newly graduated, most wearing traditional black. Some wore clothing patched with yellow, green, or red, indicating preference: to live on a planet among ordinary humans; to remain in Labyrinth, shipless; or admit a lack of ambition, accepting anything.

  Carl was wearing black—along with the majority—as if determined to gain a ship. He hadn’t wanted to, but Gould had insisted. Was it common sense or cruelty? Wearing yellow or green would avoid some of the forthcoming humiliation. At least a little.

  It’s awful. I can’t do this.

  But there was no crying off now. He had a fantasy of faking illness, but the medsys nodes would check him out—immediately, given the importance of the ceremony. Besides, half the Pilot Candidates here looked ready to throw up.

  “Look at chickenshit Anderson.” Riley gestured toward a candidate whose tunic bore scarlet epaulettes. “Accepting judgment, my ass. No way he deserves a ship, and he knows it.”

  “No one knows for sure what will happen.” Soo Lin seemed totally calm. “Perhaps acceptance is best.”

  “So how come you’re wearing black?”

  “I know who I am.”

  “And you know you’re going to fly. Exactly my point. Even Blackstone agrees, right?”

  Carl dipped his chin. “Er, sure.”

  “You don’t sound it, pal.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re not exactly—”

  But Marina was walking toward them. Riley fell silent.

  “I hope we’re all supporting each other.” Her voice was beautiful. “So where’s Eleanor? Anyone seen her?”

  She looked around the mass of sweeping silver spars that formed the hall. In her black jumpsuit, she appeared particularly fit. She was the fastest runner in their year, something she dismissed, proud only of her academic skills.

  “Come on guys,” she said. “Can you see her?”

  Only the palest of golden shimmers touched the air. They might almost have been in realspace instead of an annex of Hilbert Hall, site of the city’s formal celebrations.

  Just to add to the pressure.

  He wished he was one of those Pilots raised on human worlds who would not even bother coming here, knowing that Labyrinth had nothing for them. They wouldn’t suffer the humiliation that he was about to—

  ~Pilot Candidates, make yourself ready.~

  The voice reverberated through their minds.

  ~You have fifteen minutes to compose yourselves.~

  Riley rubbed his face.

  “Crap. Fifteen minutes. I want my ship”—with a shaky vibrato—“right now.”

  Marina touched Riley on the shoulder. He blushed.

  Carl blinked. He’d always been close to Marina, able to talk to her like a best friend; but at night he’d dreamed other kinds of dreams. Nothing that might come true, not with his impending public failure.

  For she was the instructors’ golden girl, favored with access to restricted sections of the Logos Library. He was the quirky one with odd views, out of step with his friends.

  “Oh,” said Marina. “There’s Eleanor. Come on.”

  Riley and Soo Lin walked with her while Carl trailed behind. He was the first to stop, seeing what Eleanor was up to. Around her, the air seemed to move like sliding shards of ice, followed by a spiraling rotation through angles impossible in realspace.

  “Impatient,” said Riley, tugging the others to a halt. “Can’t blame her.”

  Eleanor had twisted out of least-action timeflow, electing to pass the remaining fifteen minutes in a rippling subspace where only seconds would pass. Riley looked envious. Probably wished that he could summon up the concentration to follow suit. Instead, he stared at the distortion—like fragmented reflections of Eleanor in a shattered mirror—saying nothing.

  That was pretty much how the fifteen minut
es passed, with only a few nervous murmurs among the gathered candidates, until Eleanor rotated back into normal timeflow, smiling.

  “Hey,” said Marina. “Trust you to—”

  ~Pilot Candidates, move out.~

  So this was it. Jostling, they lined up four abreast, then waited while the great doors split into myriad polygons folding back on themselves, revealing a shining walkway down to Borges Boulevard. This was Labyrinth’s most notable thoroughfare, within the city yet infinite in extent.

  They began to walk.

  For them, it was perhaps a five-hundred-meter journey but it felt infinite, because overhead were floating tiers of seats with several thousand occupants: Pilots who had arranged their schedules specifically so that they could watch Graduation.

  Like the pressure wasn’t bad enough already.

  Did they remember the joy of it? The nova-burst of elation when they received their own ships? Because, of course, these were the winners: true Pilots who lived for voyaging.

  I can’t go through with this.

  But he had to.

  Beside him, Marina’s face was shining with pride and excitement, and the certainty that today was going to be the most notable day of her life.

  Mine too.

  But not in the same way, judging by the sickness building inside him. He trembled as he walked toward the ending of his cozy years in Labyrinth; toward shameful humiliation; to very public failure.

  Not long now.

  The quickglass splendor of Vertigo City, its towers and glistening flow-ways, drop far below as Fairwell Rotunda, detached, ascends toward orbit. A baby is crying in half-hearted misery; otherwise, the lounge is quiet.

  Carl sees that the gray-bearded “priest”—he mentally labels him Graybeard—has a carry-case at his feet. Interesting. Before Graybeard can notice him, Carl returns his attention to the view window and the receding glowing clouds.

  Behind him, the family who will be making the voyage are approaching Xala.

  “Er…Miss?” says the husband. “I was, er, we were wondering. About the Pilot.”

  “Don’t,” said Xala.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Don’t wonder or worry about anything.”

  “Yes, but it isn’t only humans who—”

  He falls silent. Scarface is approaching.

  “Pretty kid you have there.” And with a smile: “The daughter, too.”

  “I—”

  “Better sit down with ’em and keep quiet. Real quiet.”

  The husband’s posture breaks, shoulders slumping, his skin slick with sweat. As Carl turns away, he can still sense the fear. Below the conscious level, everyone’s reptilian brain reacts to airborne molecules.

  “That’s good. Blessed are the fuckin’ peacemakers, right?”

  Carl’s back is speckled with tension. There’s an atavistic reaction to damaged humans: flaring dread in the presence of a psychopath.

  What else should I expect?

  Traveling like this, among the desperate and the devious, he’s bound to come across people like Scarface, not to mention the watchful Graybeard. There’s the criminal element, and there are potential victims broadcasting vulnerability: the family, maybe even himself.

  Loser.

  He wishes he hadn’t seen Marina, at least not now. She’ll be on the upper deck, ready to return to her vessel and receive high-paying passengers along with legitimate cargo.

  Outside is darkness as they leave the atmosphere. Already some lounges have budded off as saucer-shapes from Fairwell Rotunda, floating away in low-Molsin orbit. Others are headed this way—floating lounges from a previous ascent, needing to return home.

  But before that—

  Oh, such a beauty.

  —a great silver ship springs into being, a spreading-teardrop sculpture of sweeping arcs and gleaming power, stately now as she approaches the orbiting rotunda. Even if Carl hadn’t been at Graduation, he’d know this for Marina’s ship. She was always exceptional. “Like vessel, like Pilot,” is what they say in Labyrinth.

  “Is that our ship, Daddy?”

  “Shush,” answers the mother. “Shush, now.”

  Chance would be a fine thing. But there’s a benefit of being here, because if Carl were on board Marina’s ship, he wouldn’t get to see the departure. It takes some twenty minutes before she drifts away from the rotunda. Everyone apart from Scarface has lost interest in the view.

  Then the shining ship swoops through vacuum, and spacetime blazes with sapphire blue, flares nova-bright, and collapses back to ordinary darkness. Marina has left the universe.

  “Beautiful.”

  Graybeard nods in Carl’s direction. But it’s dangerous to vocalize reactions without reaction, at least in this company. Especially if Xala turns out to be a human agent—call her a spy—for Zajinets.

  Right now she’s holding out delta-bands, draped across her hands.

  “All right, everyone.” Xala heads for the family. “Take a band each, press your thumb on the dark pad to activate. Make sure the children are asleep before you use your own.”

  “Um…Don’t we put them on after we’re aboard?”

  One of the false priests clears his throat.

  “No,” says Xala.

  “I…Right. Right.”

  The parents place the delta-bands on their children’s foreheads. Young eyelids flutter as protective coma descends.

  Crap.

  There’s nothing Carl can do but accept a band from Xala. The damn thing will induce delta waves in his brain, just like anybody else’s. Wonderful. Deep sleep in the presence of psychopaths. Of course, they’re waiting for everyone else to go first.

  A bulge in the deck morphs into a couch. He sits sideways-on, placing the band on his forehead. It prickles for a few seconds, then feels comfortable. He lies back, wriggling to settle himself as the morphing quickglass adapts.

  Move your hand.

  Closing his eyes, he starts a mantra going in a stern internal voice.

  Remember, move your hand.

  For him, feelings of being determined usually start in his lower chest—we encode our feelings viscerally, via the peptide receptors of our internal organs—and then move upward. He visualizes determination as a glowing wheel of light, looping over and over, then spins it faster, more intensely, commanding himself to move his hand after sleep—

  Remember…

  —descends.

  Call it a walk of shame.

  The candidates marched in time—left, right, left, right, fail-ure, fail-ure—beneath the tiers of watching Pilots who—gods, no—included Carl’s parents. He saw them through a watery haze of shame and stress. They weren’t supposed to be here. Hadn’t Dad apologized for his commitments in the Eisberg Nebula? And Mom with him.

  How can I endure this?

  Perhaps it would be better to break formation and run.

  “Relax.” Marina, in step beside him, spoke with minimal lip movement. “You’ll be all right.”

  No, I won’t.

  They exited Borges Boulevard, descending to a wide platform that stopped at the edge of a bluish chasm. The far side was the Great Shield, the cliff-like outer wall of Ascension Annex. Great scallop shapes were ranged along the Shield in rows.

  ~Make yourselves ready, Pilot Candidates.~

  They spread out on the platform, all hundred and seventy-three of them, separating by psychological more than physical distance: they were on their own.

  Finally, Graduation.

  All the years of childhood—his first decade spent on a human world, then the joy of Labyrinth, all the more wondrous for his realspace beginnings—and the growing sense of purpose, the internalizing of discipline, the sense of destiny in life: a rush of memories cascaded through Carl, poignant, making him want to cry.

  I can’t face this.

  High up on the Great Shield, one of the scallop shapes moved.

  Too late.

  Graduation was starting, and the possibilit
y of running was gone. He could only watch as a white frosty ribbon-path extended from the scallop-door, meandering snake-like toward the platform. It touched, then shivered into stillness.

  No one moved.

  ~Pilot Candidate Ruis Delgado, step forward.~

  A slight-looking Pilot Candidate took a step, paused, then walked to the platform’s edge.

  ~Rise and be judged.~

  One more pace took him onto the ribbon-path. It began to flow, bearing him upward to the retracting scallop-door. Far off to one side, a giant holo grew, granting everyone a close-up view of Delgado’s progress.

  He reached the opened doorway and stepped through. Inside was a great pale hangar, and, in the holo, everyone could see what hung there: a ship, purple and cobalt-blue, richly colored and strong.

  No one applauded yet.

  Tiny beneath the ship, Delgado walked beneath her and held up his hands. When he touched the hull, the ship quivered. Delgado bowed his head.

  Then a carry-tendril snaked down from the ship, wrapped around his waist, and lifted him up. On top, the tendril lowered him through the dorsal opening into the Pilot’s cabin, onto the control couch he was born to occupy.

  As the tendril retracted and the hull sealed up, the Pilots cheered. Applause washed around the great space, echoing in the chill air as the scallop-door closed. Now the holo showed the purple-and-blue ship rising, turning, then flying along a blue-lined tunnel through Ascension Annex.

  The watching Pilots quietened.

  When the new ship burst out into golden mu-space, everybody roared. Delgado’s maiden flight was a triumph. He soared off toward a crimson nebula that shone against a backdrop of black fractal stars: a destination of his choosing.

  The holo faded to transparency, a waiting ripple in the air. One hundred and seventy-two candidates breathed out, trying to calm themselves. Some blinked away tears. Delgado’s ship had looked strong, capable. A good start.

  ~Pilot Candidate Adam Kirov, step forward.~

  This time the ribbon-path came from low down on the Great Shield.

  ~Rise and be judged.~

  It carried Kirov to the hangar. The waiting vessel was long and bronze, ringed with shining green. When Kirov touched the hull, he tipped his head back and laughed, a joyous sound replayed and magnified from the giant holo’s audio. Once more the Pilots cheered and clapped as the ship took Kirov inside. Within a minute, they had burst out of Labyrinth, aimed at a black star, and soared away.