by Tim Pratt
Callie hunched her shoulders and looked down into her coffee cup. “There are no survivors.”
“That’s what you thought about my crew, when you went to rescue them – you didn’t think there was any hope at all. You admitted that afterward.”
Callie nodded. “That’s true. But rescuing them was one of very few exceptions in a lifetime made up mostly of rules. Your crew was only lost for a couple of days. It’s been well over a week here, and that’s just the auditors. The others have been missing for over a month. I am not hopeful we’ll find any survivors, but we might find some answers, and keep more people from being killed. We’ll do a better job if we set out tomorrow well rested and with a sense of calm and clarity. Rushing ahead only risks getting us killed too.”
“I know. You’re right. I just have a soft spot when it comes to thinking of people lost in space.”
“It’s an easy place to get lost in. There’s lots of it.”
“Space is big,” Elena said.
Callie gave another secret smile. “How about that. You do listen to me.” She sipped, and then put on a changing-the-subject face. “I hope Stephen isn’t hitting the sacraments too hard. Inner space is big too, and I don’t want him to get lost in there.”
Stephen was lost in a world of green. He spun, bodiless and slow, traveling through unimaginable verdancy: there were leaves and vines all around him, yes, but also green waterfalls, green soil, green air. A presence – unseen but feminine, motherly but stern – beckoned him onward, onward, onward…
And down. A tunnel of blackness opened beneath him, and then engulfed him, and he plummeted. The tunnel walls began to glow, showing bands of light at regular intervals, flashing past: much like the tunnel they traversed in the White Raven when they used their personal bridge generator, so different from the unlit passageways people traveled through with the big fixed bridges. These lights, though, were green, not white, and soon the smooth stone of the tunnel was encroached upon by lichen, mold, vines, and creepers. The tunnel was no longer the sterile ancient conduit created by the Axiom, holes punched in the fabric of space, but instead a living place, a natural cavern in the ground, full of life. Was there a lesson there? Something about life conquering the Axiom’s drive toward subjugation and death?
He reached the bottom of the tunnel and floated, shimmering leaves on all sides. His breath, in his body, somewhere far away, made the leaves rustle in time. He sensed the presence again, the Green Lady, looming over him, but he felt suddenly unwelcome, that this was not his place, that he didn’t belong here, that he was an outsider, an invader, a despoiler–
Stephen opened his eyes, gasping. He shivered, though the dim, cushion-filled room was warm. The dose Q had given him was fast-acting and also cleared the system quickly, and the green tinge at the edges of his vision receded rapidly. Q was right there, holding him close, her arms around him, helping to ground him in his body as he gulped for air. “I… There was a bridge of fog, and then a forest, and then a jungle, and then there was a tunnel, and, and caverns, and I was out of place, I knew it…”
“Oh, no,” Q said. “I’m sorry. I was hoping you’d find her in a more welcoming aspect. That’s how she manifests most frequently, these days, as a nurturing figure. But early on, lots of us had the experience you did – she made us feel like we were weeds in her garden.”
He nodded. “Yes. Exactly.” He twitched, the Green Lady’s disapproval in him like a fever, and she held him closer. That helped.
Q said, “Some people think it’s just a bad molecule in the compound. That the feeling of transgression is due to a tension between the physical and the mental, a border that hasn’t been properly erased, a connection to the body that’s too strong and insistent, so we feel unwelcome in the inner space. Others think…” She trailed off.
“What?”
Q sighed. “Some of those who believe our visions are messages from something outside ourselves, from entities with independent existence, think the Green Lady is telling us we shouldn’t be here on Owain. That we shouldn’t have terraformed this place. There was life here, you know, when the Liars first brought us here – very simple life, the local equivalent of slime mold, but still. That’s why the planet was such a good candidate for terraforming – it was already capable of sustaining life, though not Earth life. By terraforming we destroyed the conditions that allowed those simple lifeforms to thrive, and they’re all gone now, except for a few samples. In addition to killing that simple life, though, we also destroyed what that life might have become. What might that slime have evolved into, given time, and an undisturbed environment? Would it have developed into multicellular life? Sentient life? Sapient life? A few members of the church left the terraforming project because they thought the Green Lady was enraged at us for destroying the opportunity for new forms of life to grow here. I’ve actually got a sort of hybrid art project and science project devoted to that idea.”
“Oh?”
She nodded. “I had some environmental science friends build a dome on my property, enclosing a full acre, and pulled some strings with biologists to fill it with samples from the pre-terraforming days. The interior of the dome mimics the conditions on the planet from before we arrived as perfectly as possible, matching the original character of the geographical location – it’s swamp, basically – and I’m just letting it grow wild. It’s a miniature ecosystem, as balanced as we can make it. I’m good with systems management, and confident I can sustain it for a long time. It’s small, of course, and it’s not like I expect a civilization to rise up inside, and it’s all a cheat because there are no outside forces acting on it, but… it’s something. A memorial to the world that might have been, at least. That was the accommodation I made with the Green Lady.”
“That’s a beautiful idea,” Stephen said. “I’d like to see it sometime.”
“I’d really like to show you,” she said. “That’s not the only theory about why the Green Lady is displeased, though. Some people think there used to be advanced life on this planet, thousands or millions of years ago, and that the Lady is angry on their behalf – that we’re dancing on the graves of a dead civilization, tearing down even their ruins.”
Knowing what he did about how the Axiom – and the truth-tellers, acting as stewards of genocide in the absence of their masters – treated intelligent life, that idea didn’t strike Stephen as impossible. “Is there any evidence of past life on Owain?”
“Not really. We’ve unearthed a few bits of metal that probably didn’t occur naturally, but Owain is the closest planet to a bridge, and the Liars used the bridges long before humanity did. They probably left some junk behind.”
Or else there was some other civilization here, long ago, and the Axiom destroyed it, and their works vanished under the growth of millennia.
“She usually only rebuffs you once,” Q was saying. “The second time you seek her, she is almost always more welcoming, and it gets better from there.”
“I’d… rather not risk it just now.”
Q smiled. “Maybe you’d like to take something else, then? I could call in a few other congregants, and we could share a sacrament of comfort together? Something entactogenic, maybe some of the oxytocin-derivatives…”
“I’d like that,” Stephen said. “I’m not sure I’m up for meeting another batch of people, though – I’m feeling a bit vulnerable after that experience. Maybe just… me and you? Something more personal?” Outsiders often assumed membership in the Church of the Ecstatic Divine was an excuse to have orgies, and yes, there were naked cuddle piles from time to time, but sexual (as opposed to sensual) activity was minimal, and almost nonexistent. For one thing, having sex with someone when your perception was altered such that their flesh appeared to be rippling like the surface of the ocean was distracting, but more importantly, you didn’t need to have sex with someone when you were on drugs that made you feel connected to them on a level that transcended the physical, and when the stroke of a fi
ngertip on your skin was more pleasurable and sustained than orgasm. When the doses and conditions of the sacraments were right, the barriers that divided one person from another seemed to vanish, until you couldn’t tell where you ended and your fellow worshippers began. He missed that feeling so much.
Q looked at him for a long moment. “Huh,” she said. “That’s interesting. Do you feel a desire to connect with me, in particular? Or just to form a close one-on-one connection with someone, and I happen to be convenient? Both are fine. I’m just curious.”
Stephen knew he was known among his crew for being quiet, doleful, self-contained. But here, in the safety of the church, he could open himself in ways that felt safe nowhere else. He could, but it wasn’t easy, and his voice croaked a bit when he said, “You. In particular.”
“Huh,” she said again. Then she smiled, and that smile looked so much better on her face than pity and sympathy had. “Let’s give it a try.”
Chapter 15
Callie sat in the cockpit with Drake and Janice, watching their progress through the dark. The nose of the White Raven was a segmented dome of smartglass panes hardened for space travel, and the glass was currently toggled to transparent. There wasn’t a lot to see out there, though: just blackness and distant stars. They’d been traveling for a while, and had left the bridgehead and its asteroid base far behind. They hadn’t encountered any signs of life, but so far they hadn’t encountered anything that took life, either. There was plenty of darkness, but it wasn’t devouring anything.
“Are the long-range sensors picking up anything, Janice?”
“Space rocks in space,” she said.
“Helpful as always.” Ashok had once made reference to a “falling star” and Janice had launched into a lecture on proper terminology, with an extra dose of condescension, because she was feeling bored and obstreperous, probably: “Falling stars are called meteors, Ashok. They aren’t stars. They’re the flash of space rocks burning up in the atmosphere. Not to be confused with meteorites, which are space rocks that make it to the ground partly intact.”
Ashok hadn’t been offended. “So what are asteroids?”
“Space rocks in space.” Janice didn’t bother calling him an idiot. When Janice talked to you, you could usually take that part as given.
Callie’s terminal was set to combat readiness, a screen full of glowing options to deal out devastation, and nothing to use it against. “Are any of the space rocks secretly space monsters? We’re getting close to the zone of death. Or disappearance. No reason to be overly pessimistic.”
“I’ll tell you if there’s anything noteworthy, captain,” Janice said. “If I notice a giant alien interstellar meat separator covered in spikes, you’ll be the first to know.”
Callie sighed. “If there’s nothing but rocks, at least light them up so I can see what we’re dealing with.”
The screen lit up suddenly with hundreds of green specks, as if the asteroids were mossy rocks. Some of the specks were large, and some were small, but they were all getting bigger with every second of forward thrust. The ship was approaching the asteroid belt from beneath the plane of the ecliptic, but from Callie’s perspective, it looked like they were falling toward a shattered land. “That’s a lot of space rocks in space.”
“It’s like a wall around the system,” Drake said. “This makes the asteroid belt back home look like more of a cummerbund. Admittedly, a wall you can fly over or under isn’t much of a wall, but still.”
“Look at all that fancy metal just whizzing around in space, unattended,” Callie said. “Even after the cost of extracting it all, Almajara will clear billions of lix on this deal. Wow. I hope the Owainians – Owainites? denizens of Owain – negotiated for a big percentage for themselves.”
“Mining rights aren’t much good if there’s something eating all the miners,” Janice said. “Maybe these asteroids are secretly baby Axiom eggs and we’ve stumbled into their well-protected nursery, with ship-killing robot nannies.”
“I’ll file that under ‘plausible hypotheses.’” Callie toggled the comms and connected to the machine shop. “Ashok, is Lantern with you?”
“Of course. Why break up a duo of such distinction?”
“Did the Axiom blow up a planet in this system, Lantern?”
Lantern’s voice was tentative. “I can’t be sure, Callie. The surviving records from the time of the empire are fragmented, so our accounting of Axiom exterminations is partial at best. The fact that there is a wormhole bridge here suggests the Axiom had an interest in the system, and their interest was often inimical to local life. It’s entirely possible the asteroid belt is the remnants of a planet they destroyed for their own reasons.”
“Like because there was some annoying race of sapient creatures they needed to eliminate,” Callie said.
“It’s certainly possible,” Lantern said. “But it’s difficult to understand the motives of the Axiom. Perhaps they destroyed a planet simply to test the efficacy of a new weapon, or it might have been a casualty of one of their factional skirmishes. There is an Axiom station a few days beyond the asteroid belt, near the truth-teller base – perhaps the planet’s orbit brought it too close to their project, and they wanted to clear space? There’s no way to know.”
“If the Axiom did destroy a planet, is there a chance they left the weapons that did it lying around?”
“Ah,” Lantern said. “I see. You think the surveyors might have run afoul of such a weapon, still operational after all these millennia, like unlucky people stepping on a land mine from a long ago war. The Axiom did build things to last, but I don’t know… using a planet-destroying gun to destroy ships seems like overkill, even by Axiom standards. It seems like a weapon capable of destroying a planet would produce some sign we could perceive, in terms of radiation if not in the visible spectrum.”
“I’m not picking up any unusual radiation, captain,” Janice said. “I’ve just got… huh. That’s weird.”
“What?”
“There’s something warm up there, among the asteroids,” Janice said. “I’m picking up some bright heat signatures.” Heat regulation was always an issue in space. The vacuum was a perfect insulator, and there was no easy way to dump waste heat, so hot things tended to stay that way for a long time unless you took steps to cool them down. There were whole branches of engineering devoted to solving the problem, and various human and Liar-made technologies designed to keep parts of your ship from melting, and hiding your heat signature from detection when you wanted to be sneaky.
“Is it a ship?” Callie leaned forward, as if she could see anything through the windows besides green rocks.
“Our sensors aren’t showing me anything ship-shaped. When I account for the asteroids, I’m not seeing any other masses out there at all. It’s like there’s heat, but no surface radiating that heat.” The screens changed, the green vanishing, and in its place, a fuzzy blob of reddish dots appeared, dense among the asteroids, larger than the largest space rock.
“What is that?” Callie said
“It appears to be a cloud of hot gas,” Janice said.
“Like… a cloud of hot gas left over from a ship being blown up?”
“Eh, if the ship was vaporized, maybe, because that’s what we’re dealing with – vapor. This isn’t debris. It’s just… hot dust.”
“Let’s send out a probe and get a sample. Shall, want to go for a walk?”
The ship’s computer spoke. “Have you ever worn boots that are two sizes too small? That’s how it feels when you put me inside a probe.”
“I’ll take that as an ‘aye, aye, sir.’ Besides, you can just run the probe by remote control, you don’t need to bud off a copy of your consciousness. Prep for launch.” She switched to shipwide communication. “We’ve got something worth looking at here, folks. I’m going to call Q and give her a heads-up. Nobody talk about ancient alien super-monsters over the open channel, OK?”
Everyone affirmed their infallible
discretion, and she contacted Q’s little ship, the Peregrina, hanging a few kilometers back. Q’s face appeared in one of the dome’s panels as the window transformed into a viewscreen. “We’re picking up some unusual heat signatures,” Callie said. “We’re going to cut thrust, and send a probe to take a closer look.”
“Understood. I’ll stop my engines so I don’t overtake you. Are there, ah… any signs of life?”
“No.” That was probably too brusque. Q was a corporate drone, but she wasn’t all that drone-like, and Stephen liked her, so Callie softened her tone. “We’re just beginning our investigations, though.”
Q nodded. “I’m a realist, Captain Machedo. Just a hopeful one.”
“That’s a good combination, if you can manage it,” Callie said. “Ashok, Shall, are we ready?”
“Shall is all linked up to the probe,” Ashok said. “And it’s loaded in the launch port. Just say when.”
“Shall is your ship’s expert system?” Q asked.
“I’m an AI, actually,” Shall said.
Q blinked on the screen. “That’s… wow. Those are expensive.”
“Shall was an anniversary gift from my ex-husband,” Callie said.
“A gift?” Shall said. “I feel so objectified.”
“Wait. You have an AI based on a template of Reynauld Garcia-Hassan’s nephew?” Q said.
“Grand-nephew, but yes,” Shall said. “I was created nearly a decade ago. My template and I don’t have all that much in common any more. For one thing, Callie’s still on speaking terms with me.”
“Let’s have less speaking and more probing.” Callie winced. “Please, no probing jokes.”
“Launching,” Ashok said. A few moments later, a pumpkin-sized orb bristling with sensor studs and nodules appeared on the viewscreens, hurtling toward the glowing red cloud. Janice lit up the probe in blue so they could visually track its progress.