The Dreaming Stars

by Tim Pratt

  They went into the galley, and everyone else was already in place. Callie sat at the head of the table, Ashok beside her, Lantern beside him, an empty seat for Stephen beside her. Drake and Janice were in their chair at the end, their privacy screen down, because Sebastien was a stranger, and they didn’t like being exposed in front of strangers, even in the best of circumstances. Elena sat down across from Ashok, and gestured for Sebastien to join her.

  Everyone stared at him. He smiled, with all his old charm. “Hello, everyone. Thank you for having me.”

  “You hungry?” Ashok said.

  “I haven’t eaten solid food in… I’m not sure how long. At least months. But Doctor Baros says I’m cleared to try.”

  Ashok nodded and rose, pulling two trays from a heating pod and popping off the lids. An enticing garlicky aroma wafted throughout the galley. “You’ve got a treat tonight.” Ashok put the trays down in front of Sebastien and Elena, along with utensils; no knives, Elena noticed, but it wasn’t like they were eating steaks. “We re-upped our supplies on Ganymede, and then picked up some actual grown-in-the-dirt vegetables on Owain, so I made my famous garlic tofu stir fry. Lantern is mostly just eating the garlic.”

  “The garlic is pretty good,” Lantern said. “Could be more garlicky.”

  “Garlic and broccoli, on an enclosed spaceship,” Callie said. “This is truly a dish preferred by someone with an artificial nose they can modify so it doesn’t detect stinky things.”

  “It’s not my fault you haven’t chosen to modify your factory equipment, cap,” Ashok said.

  “The Machedo nose is a family heirloom,” she said.

  Elena closed her eyes and inhaled. “Oh, Ashok, this is wonderful.”

  Sebastien took a bite, swallowed, and smiled. “This is wonderful. Truly. I can’t imagine a better first meal.”

  “Don’t encourage him,” Callie said. “You know there’s too much garlic. Ashok is whatever the opposite of a supertaster is. He spices everything into oblivion.”

  “Guilty as charged, cap,” Ashok said. “And utterly without remorse. I’ll get an augmented tongue one of these days, don’t worry. I can configure it to match your boring taste buds and cook accordingly.”

  “Finally, a useful upgrade.” Callie gestured around with her fork. “Sebastien, you met Ashok, and I know you remember me. Our navigator and pilot, Janice and Drake, are in the chair over there. This is Lantern – remember her?”

  “Ah, yes, from the servitor–” He turned the word into a cough. “The, ah, what is it? The Liars?”

  “That’s what humans call us,” Lantern said. “We call ourselves the Free. The Axiom called us servitors. Or vermin. You called me vermin, I’m told, when you were on the Axiom station.” She fluttered her pseudopods in a gesture Elena hadn’t seen her make before, but she thought it meant disgust, or disdain. “You used to be human. Then you were at least partly Axiom. What are you now?”

  “Forgive me, Lantern. I was not myself back then. As for now, I am all too human, and thus prone to terrible social errors. I apologize.” He lowered his fork and looked at each of them in turn, even gazing for a moment at Drake and Janice’s mirrored visor. “I apologize to all of you. I was sick, but I still did terrible things, and I know it will take a long time to earn your forgiveness. I intend to do my best, though.”

  “You might get your chance,” Callie said. “Can you still understand Axiom writing?”

  “I think so,” Sebastien said. “There is… a lot of information in my brain, and that’s part of it. I seem to know a lot more than I used to about very strange information retrieval systems – computers, but not like any computers from my time – than I should, too.”

  “The Axiom liked to make their mind-controlled flunkies useful, so they put some helpful things in your head. We’re on our way toward something – we don’t know what – but we think the Axiom built it. We’d like to figure out why they built it, and how to turn it off, or destroy it.”

  “I will render any assistance I can, of course. It’s the least I can do.”

  “Good. You owe me a lot of back rent and medical expenses, so consider yourself on call.” Callie turned back to her meal, and Elena exhaled in relief. That could have gone a lot worse. Callie seemed willing to give Sebastien a chance, and the others would follow her lead.

  “Do you always do the cooking, Ashok?” Sebastien asked.

  “Nah, we take turns, me and Callie and Stephen. Drake and Janice have weird stomachs, so they prepare their own meals, and one time Elena burned some oatmeal so she’s strictly relegated to sous chef duty these days, and Lantern doesn’t really do human cooking.”

  “Insufficient garlic,” Lantern said.

  Ashok nodded. “Callie always makes spaghetti. Every third night, spaghetti. She grew up eating Hawaiian and Portuguese food and I assume some really interesting fusion cuisine and still – just pasta. Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve tried to eat spaghetti in microgravity.” He considered. “Stephen makes lots of different things, at least. They’re all pretty good, actually. Not as good as mine, because he’s not a famous gourmet, but, you know, comfort food stuff. I guess he’s gone to a lot of church potlucks.”

  Sebastien cleared his throat. “You know, I was considered a good cook back on Earth. I’d be happy to pitch in and join the rotation. Or even just take over the job of ship’s cook entirely, and free the rest of you up for more important things.”

  No one answered. Callie stared at him, as if aghast at his presumptuousness, and the others just looked down at their trays.

  “Er… not that cooking isn’t important, too… obviously, food is important, I didn’t mean to offend anyone.” Sebastien looked around, clearly baffled. “It’s just, I’d like to contribute to the… life of the… ship.” Elena put a hand on his arm, but he kept talking. “What is it? I don’t understand. What’s wrong?”

  Ashok paused from scooping broccoli into his mouth to say, “We’re not going to let you cook for us, because you might poison everybody. The drones would probably stop you, because our ship’s AI is running them and he’s good at paying attention, but if you were quick, you could slip something into the food. It’s the same reason we wouldn’t let you run the ship’s defenses or life support or the water filtration system.” Ashok shrugged. “You were all kinds of murdery for a while there, is the thing.”

  Sebastien set his fork down carefully, with a small tink. “Ah. Yes. Of course. I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

  They finished eating in silence, and then Sebastien pushed back and rose. “Thank you for the meal. Elena showed me my room – I think I’d like to go and get some rest.”

  “I’ll walk with you.” Elena started to rise, but Sebastien shook his head.

  “No, that’s all right, stay with your friends. I’ll be all right. I have my… minders.” He gestured at the buzzing drones, and they preceded and followed him out the door.

  Elena sighed. “Ashok. Did you have to be so direct?”

  Ashok cocked his head. “What? Sorry?”

  “She wishes you’d used some tact,” Callie said. “Remember tact? That thing you don’t have any of?”

  “Oh. Right. It’s not like I said he was a hundred percent definitely going to murder everyone. Just that we’re legitimately afraid he might try.” He cocked his head, thinking. “Oh. That’s one of those very-small-distinction things, huh?”

  “Pretty small,” Callie said. “Basically nano. Are you all right, Elena?”

  She nodded. “I am. Just… a little tense. It’s hard not to be hyper-vigilant around him, after everything. I thought I’d feel better when he was awake, but I’m a lot more anxious now that he’s walking around. But… he seems better, honestly. Even just now, him being hurt and going off to sulk – that’s not something galaxy-subjugating conqueror Sebastien would have done.”

  “It was more of a human reaction than an Axiomatic one,” Lantern agreed.

  “As if humans
are so great,” Callie said.

  “Better than the Axiom,” Drake’s voice said from their chair.

  “That’s not a high bar to clear,” Callie said.

  Chapter 19

  “Stephen?” Q’s voice was harsh and cracked, but Stephen had been waiting to hear it for so long, he was off his stool and by her side in an instant.

  “Q? You’re all right. Or you will be. You’re recovering.”

  She groaned. “What happened?”

  “Your ship was destroyed,” Stephen said. “We rescued you, but you got a little banged up in the process.” Her swelling was almost entirely gone, thanks to the combination of her body’s self-regulation abilities and his anti-inflammatories, and her sunburn was healing. He’d treated the frostbite, too, and kept her hydrated intravenously. She didn’t look good, but she looked so much better it might as well have been perfection.

  “I feel like I’ve been beaten very thoroughly with hammers,” she said.

  “That doesn’t surprise me. I’ve never experienced explosive decompression personally, but it seems to fit.”

  She groaned. “Oh, Lady, that’s right. You shot my ship!”

  “Only the cockpit window. The rest, we fed to a swarm of self-replicating machines.”

  “Of course. Can’t have them going hungry. Can I sit up?”

  “I hope so. Let’s see.”

  He helped her swing her legs around and straighten her upper body, which she managed with much wincing and gritting of teeth and zero complaints. When she said she wanted to stand, he helped with that too. She groaned, and after swaying on her feet for a moment, sat down on a chair fixed to the floor. He tried to avoid fussing over her, but it was hard. They’d done very intense sacraments together, gazed deep into one another’s essences, poured out truths and secrets and fears and hopes and dreams, felt themselves merge and separate and merge again – and they’d strengthened that relationship during the long journey from Owain to the asteroid belt, murmuring on a private channel through the long days and uneventful nights, opening up about their regrets from the past and their hopes for the future.

  The only thing Stephen hadn’t shared with her was the truth about the Axiom, and it had taken an effort of will to hold that back. He still felt intermingled with her. Her pain ached as much as if it were his own.

  He hadn’t loved anyone since the moment his wife died on an operating table while he watched through a window as the second-best surgeon in the city botched the procedure he would have performed flawlessly, if he’d been allowed to operate on his own wife. He’d fled that life, repudiated his faith in those systems, and gone to a place where those kind of rules and regulations didn’t apply. He looked back as seldom as possible.

  Now, after meeting Q, he was looking, for the first time in a long time, toward the future with something other than resignation or dread.

  “Are we going back to Owain?” she said. “We have to warn them about those things.”

  Stephen hesitated. He’d talked this over with Callie, and she’d ultimately said, “Tell her as much as you feel like she needs to know.” He should probably keep the details to a minimum, but it would be hard, given the strength of the connection between them. “We’re not going to Owain. We’re tracking the source of the swarm. Callie wants to find out where it originated, so we can try to deactivate the machines.”

  “We have to warn them,” Q said again. “We have to tell them not to send anyone else out there! What that swarm did to my ship, what it must have done to the other ships, the people inside them…” She hugged herself.

  He put a tentative hand on her shoulder, and she leaned into his touch. “We can send word. I doubt anyone is going to visit that part of the asteroid belt – certainly no one from Almajara will, not until we report back, or fail to report back in the allotted time. Everyone on Owain has heard about the disappearances, and I’m sure they’re being cautious. But, yes, to be safe, we can send a message. We just have to figure out what to tell them.”

  Q’s forehead bunched up in confusion. “We tell them there’s a cloud of mysterious self-replicating machines feeding on the asteroid belt and destroying any ships they come in contact with!” She frowned. “Except for this ship. Wait. Why didn’t they destroy this ship?”

  “Ah. We have a theory, but I’ll have to give you a bit of background in order for it to make sense.”

  “Well?” she said.

  “We think the swarm is alien in origin.”

  “I should think so,” Q said. “The only humans in this system are on Owain. We have the records of passages through the bridge, going back for over two centuries, and all the people who passed through are accounted for – nobody set up a secret tech lab in the asteroid belt. It must be some previously unknown group of Liars. You’re going to find them and, what, ask them to stop?”

  Stephen shook his head. “If it were Liars, this would be easier, because Liars will listen to reason, and there are plenty of uninhabited systems we could encourage them to experiment on instead. We think it’s… other aliens.”

  Q thought for a moment and then said, “Could I have some water?”

  Stephen brought her a bulb, and she sucked on it pensively, deep in thought. She got a worry line between her eyes when she did that, and he wanted nothing more than to smooth it away with kisses and reassure her that things would be all right… though the truth was hardly all that reassuring. Finally she said, “Are you speculating about the existence of alien life, other than the Liars, in this system? Or do you know about the existence of such aliens?”

  The moment of truth. Stephen decided Q needed to know a lot of things. “The latter. We’ve encountered these other aliens – or, more accurately, their artifacts – before. We’re pretty sure the swarm is one of their projects.”

  Q ran a hand through her hair and gave a scattered, manic-sounding laugh. “I’m going to need some details here, Stephen.”

  He nodded. “Last year, we discovered a wrecked goldilocks ship, light years away from where it should have been. We found a strange device hooked into its propulsion and navigation system, and only one crew member still in cryo-sleep, beside a bunch of empty pods…” He told her the whole story, of finding Elena and rescuing her crew, and discovering the terrible threat of the Axiom, and the devastation and upheaval that had followed afterward.

  When he was done, he needed some water himself. Q sat with the story for a long time. Then she said, “So, OK, but you didn’t answer me: why didn’t the swarm eat your ship then?”

  “Ah, yes. The original question. We have the bridge generator on board still. Lantern says the swarm can detect Axiom technology, and leaves it alone. The swarm sees us as allies, essentially, or, at least, not a potential source of fuel.”

  Q leaned back in the chair. “That’s an incredible story. How could an ancient alien race, with a dead empire that spanned the galaxy, stay hidden?”

  “To quote one of Callie’s favorite sayings – space is big. It’s easy to lose things out in the black. That said, I’m sure some humans have stumbled on evidence of the Axiom, the same way we did. We’re just the only ones who’ve survived. The truth-tellers have bases in every system, keeping an eye on things, preserving the secret of the Axiom, and they’re armed with technology beyond anything humans have. They’re ruthless. When they realized we had a bridge generator, and could go places humans aren’t supposed to go, they blew up Meditreme Station in an attempt to contain the problem. The truth-tellers are the ones who introduced humans to the bridges, because it was better for them to guide us toward relatively safe systems than to let us explore on our own. They convinced everyone the big bridges can only access twenty-nine different systems, when, in reality, there are probably hundreds of accessible destinations – the others are just too close to Axiom projects. The truth-tellers have shepherded us and kept us hemmed in. The only reason they haven’t exterminated humankind is because there are too many of us, and there are still goldilocks
ships sailing to their destinations. We’re too hard to get rid of. The only reason we aren’t at war with the truth-tellers is because they opted for a strategy of containment instead of murder.”

  “Safe systems? If Taliesen is safe, why are there nanobots heading toward my home?”

  “The Axiom facility is a long way outside the system, floating in empty space, according to Lantern,” Stephen said. “It’s watched over by a cell of truth-tellers. Space being big, it probably never would have been discovered by humans… but something changed. The truth-tellers went silent, and the swarm began eating ships.”

  “Lantern. A Liar.” She almost spat the word. “She was part of this conspiracy? Why did she decide to betray her people?”

  Stephen shook his head. “It’s not like that. Only a few of the truth-tellers know their true purpose. Lantern believed her elders when they said they were trying to protect the galaxy from the Axiom. When she realized her elders were loyal to the Axiom, and protecting them, Lantern joined our cause. Most of the Liars know their people were once servants of a vast, oppressive alien hegemony, though the details were largely erased. They’re all trying to forget. The Liars make up new stories about their origins, their existence, their purpose in the universe, trying to construct new stories for themselves. They’ve lost their real history – it was stolen from them when the Axiom erased every record, even every memory, of their home world after destroying it, to punish the Liars for their attempted rebellion. The Liars are creating new histories for themselves as they go along. They’re attempting to create a reality they can bear to inhabit. That’s why they lie, Lantern says. Because the truth is too hard for most of them to bear.”

  “If all this is true…” She sighed. “Of course it’s true. You asked if I trusted you, before you blew a hole in my cockpit and sucked me out into space and saved my life, and I said yes, because I do. If I trusted you with my life, I trust you to tell me the truth about this. So… if we send a warning back to Owain, they might investigate, and stumble onto the Axiom without knowing what they’re getting into. If we go public about the Axiom, the truth-tellers might try to murder everyone – and you say they have weapons that can actually do it.”