The Dreaming Stars

by Tim Pratt

  She slept, sometimes, and Sebastien did, too, but Shall was tireless. On the twentieth day, he said, “I think it’s been about eight hours in real-time. I should go back and let Ashok and Lantern know we’re all right, and see if you two need to wake up to eat.” Their bodies were being hydrated with IV drips, but Callie had told them not to resort to feeding tubes just yet.

  Once Shall disconnected, Sebastien said, Finally, we have a private moment to talk.

  Callie groaned, a titanic and bubbling sound. “What can we possibly have to talk about that you couldn’t say in front of Shall?”

  I’d like to make a deal.

  “Oh, would you? Do tell.”

  You don’t like me. You don’t want me on your ship. I don’t feel particularly welcome as a result. There are still drones hovering around my head, even now, when I’m in here, just in case I somehow find a way to make mischief. It’s… wearying. I could attempt to win your trust, but I doubt I ever will – not completely.

  “You’re probably right.”

  Then let’s part ways.

  “When we’re done here, I’ll drop you off in the system of your choice.”

  You needn’t go to that much trouble. You can just leave me here.

  “Here? On Owain?”

  Here, in the Dream.

  “We’re going to destroy the Dream, Sebastien. We’re going to blow this whole place up.”

  No, you aren’t. The White Raven isn’t a planet-killer, and this place has more mass than a planet. You couldn’t actually destroy the whole engine, any more than you could bring down a skyscraper with your fists. There’s no need to destroy it, anyway, once you turn off the swarm – the engine itself is harmless. Deactivate the swarm, and murder all the Axiom in their pods – I heard Shall say he can do that much – and then simply plug me into the Dream.

  “You’d starve to death.”

  There are feeding tubes, and waste elimination systems. The Axiom have varying sorts of physical bodies, so the feedstock must be adaptable. I’m sure things can be configured to work for my body. Ashok would find it an interesting engineering challenge.

  “Assuming it’s even possible… why do you want that?”

  Because in here, I could build. I can use the tools of the great masters to create something new, just for me. Even if you’re right, and I am still a raging megalomaniac who wants to conquer the world… why not leave me in here and let me conquer something imaginary?

  “I’m not leaving you at the controls of a swarm of self-replicating machines and a bunch of terror drones, Sebastien.”

  He made a sound of frustration. Damn it, Callie. You can destroy the terror drones when they’re disabled. The swarm might be harder to switch off permanently, but you have a wormhole generator – you could come here and check up on me every week. You could leave drones monitoring me, and if I misbehaved, they could kill my body in its pod. You could wrap my arms around a bomb when you sent me to sleep, and blow me up at the first fluctuation in the station’s heat signature. I don’t need the swarm if I have multiple universes’ worth of territory ripe for exploration – my body isn’t going to live forever, just for decades. I won’t run out of space. This could work, and you know it. This is a good solution.

  “I’ll admit, maybe the practical problems could be overcome. But… this world, it’s a bullshit place, Sebastien. It’s not real.”

  What’s real? It’s whatever your senses tell you are real. I believed the simulation you woke me up in on the ship was real at first, and the Hypnos is primitive compared to the Dream. For a long time, I wasn’t sure the real world wasn’t a simulation, that you weren’t testing me again – I had my doubts until you plugged me in here, honestly, and even now, I’m only ninety-nine percent convinced. This… it’s real enough for me. I’ve lost everything. Let me gain something, please.

  Callie shuddered at the thought of staying inside a simulation, where nothing was real and nothing mattered, alone. “Won’t you go insane with loneliness? Even you?”

  The Dream can create people.

  Ah. There it was. “People you can control. So you’re still dreaming the dream of mind-controlling the masses?”

  The Dream can create people who think they’re people, who act on their own initiative, who do what they want. I could even recreate my old life on Earth, with the loved ones I miss all around me. I could recreate the Anjou, and we could finish our mission. I could–

  “You’d recreate your goldilocks ship? You’d make… a version of Elena? In here?”

  Don’t get emotional.

  “A version of Elena who thinks she’s the real Elena? Who still has a crush on you, maybe even falls in love with you, since in this new reality you’d never try to murder all her friends?”

  So what if I did create a version of her? It wouldn’t be your Elena. It wouldn’t affect you at all. Is it that important to you, to deny me happiness?

  “Maybe you’d have a version of me in the Dream too. A simulation that thinks it’s me, one you can maybe chain up in a basement somewhere and torture?”

  I AM CURED! he shouted in her head. I was arrogant, I could be insensitive, I could be smug. I accept all that, but I was not a sadist, or a killer, or a criminal. I wanted to make beautiful things, wonderful things, for the satisfaction of the work and the acclaim of those I admired. I am now hated, despised by the only people in the galaxy I know, looked upon with pity at best by the woman I had feelings for, adrift in time and space and my own life. I just want to retreat, Callie, to a place where I have some control. Can’t you understand that?

  Callie was silent for a long moment. Yes. I understand. Another moment. If we win, I’ll talk to Shall and Ashok and Elena about it, and if we think it’s feasible, and there’s a way to do it safely… yes. You can live in the Dream.

  Thank you, he said.

  Don’t mention it. Callie didn’t like the idea, not even a little bit – when she’d realized he wanted to simulate Elena, he was lucky he didn’t have a face in here she could punch – but she needed his help, and this would certainly motivate him. It would be nice to have him off her ship, and out of her life, by whatever method.

  She looked up and to the left, and the door appeared. Let’s get something to eat, and then come back in here and win this stupid game.

  When she sat up, Ashok and Lantern were playing chess on a tiny board with tiny pieces. “Did you have that chess set hidden in your prosthetic leg?” Callie said.

  “It’s not all mini-drones and flash-bangs in there, cap,” Ashok said.

  “Where’s Shall?”

  “He went to send an update to the ship, upload his experiences to his main mind, and all that.” Ashok moved a knight. Lantern chortled. Ashok said, “Aw dang. I didn’t see that.”

  Shall came back – fast, his legs a blur. Callie leapt to her feet, thumbing the weaponry mounted on her suit to active. “What’s wrong?”

  “The White Raven,” Shall said. “It’s gone.”

  Chapter 29

  Stephen was in the galley with Q and Elena, all of them doing their best not to worry about what was happening inside the blank silver sphere of the station. Callie and the others had been inside for two hours. Shall had promised to update them after eight. Time was crawling.

  Q was telling them about her house and gardens on Owain, and how there was only a notional difference between inside and outside – the walls and ceiling were all retractable and windowed with smart-glass, so she could close them against wind and rain and opaque them for privacy, or open everything up to the sun and breeze and flowers. A creek trickled through her house, running under a transparent floor in parts, and open and accessible in others. Stephen thought it sounded heavenly. He hadn’t realized how much he missed having soil under his feet, after all these years living on artificial habitats, but once upon a time, he’d loved gardens. How much of the past decade had been him punishing himself for his failures? Isolating himself so he wouldn’t feel hurt again?
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  “We’re getting a distress signal, XO,” Janice called. “Somebody’s having a real bad day on the other side of that asteroid belt.”

  Stephen groaned. He hated being second-in-command, because when Callie took a hands-on approach, it meant he was first in command. But what was the alternative? Drake and Janice wouldn’t take the job – neither was willing to take orders from the other, for purposes of shared-body peacekeeping, and they couldn’t do it jointly, because urgent command decisions couldn’t necessarily be arrived at via gradual consensus building. Ashok would be the first to admit he’d be terrible as an executive officer, and Shall said if it was up to him they’d all retire and run a coffee shop on a nice peaceful space station somewhere. Stephen was the best and only man for the job. “Details?” he said. “Did someone run afoul of the swarm?”

  “Not yet, but give them time,” Janice said. “It’s a wide-band distress beacon from a ship called the… Malted Milk? That’s a stupid name.”

  “No. Oh no.” Q put her head in her hands. “‘Malted Milk’ is a classical blues song. That ship belongs to a musician, one of the congregants who went missing – who died, out here, on a surveying trip. His son has been talking about going out to look for him, and I told him not to, that I’d handle it, but he must not have listened.”

  “Is he a teenager?” Stephen said.

  “Ha. No. Jabar is thirty. He knows better. The Malted Milk hasn’t flown in years, and it barely made it to Owain from the bridge in the first place.”

  “Sounds right,” Janice said. “Their engines died, though they made it way past the bridge, maybe halfway to the asteroid belt. Looking at these coordinates… they’re almost certainly in the path of the swarm.”

  “Oh, no.” Elena hugged herself. “Those poor people.”

  “Has anyone responded to the call?” Stephen said.

  “Not really,” Janice said. “Everyone is so nervous about the disappearances that there are no ships anywhere off the planet right now, except the one at the bridge station, and the port authority won’t leave that unattended. The people on the ground are arguing about who should go fetch the Malted Milk back, but there’s no sense of urgency – the ship has working life support, and supplies. Everyone figures they’ll get bored, but they won’t die.”

  “Everyone doesn’t know about the swarm,” Q said. “How close is it to the disabled ship?”

  “All we have are projections,” Shall said. “If we believe what Elder Trogidae said about the swarm heading to the planet right away… we don’t have long before the gatherers reach the Malted Milk. Maybe as little as an hour. No ship could make it from Owain in time to save them, anyway.”

  “They’ll die.” Q put her head in her hands. “I know Jabar. I know his cousins, and I bet they’re with him, too. Jabar didn’t think I was doing enough to find out what happened to his father. He thinks my loyalties were divided – that I care more about Almajara Corp than about the church. Than I care about him.”

  Stephen didn’t like being in command, but that didn’t mean he shirked the responsibilities. “We’ll go rescue them.”

  Elena looked alarmed, but didn’t say anything.

  “How?” Q said. “We’re days away.”

  “We have a bridge generator,” Stephen said. “We can jump to a point just out of their sensor range, and pretend we happened to be in the area. We’d better get moving. Saving you was all the last-minute rescues I want to engage in.”

  “Really?” Q said. “You’re going to help them?”

  “Captain Machedo is likely to be occupied for a while anyway. Shall? Janice? Can you get us a safe distance away from the station and then open a bridge? I don’t want any motes of the swarm inadvertently slipping in after us.”

  “Aye, aye,” Janice said.

  Elena cleared her throat. “Can we leave… some sort of message for Callie, so she knows where we’ve gone? Like a beacon? In case she comes looking for us?”

  “Good idea,” Stephen said.

  “I’ll deploy a radio beacon now,” Shall said.

  “Calculating coordinates,” Janice said.

  “Engaging engine,” Drake said. The ship hummed and began to move away from the station.

  “Oh, shit,” Janice said. “The swarm just ate the radio beacon.”

  “Yes, it did,” Shall said.

  Stephen closed his eyes for a moment. “All right then. We’ll just have to hurry back before Callie misses us.”

  “Do we need to strap in, or anything?” Q clutched at the arms of her chair.

  “No, it’s just like going through the public bridges, in most respects,” Stephen said. “Except… come to the observation deck.” He rose and beckoned, and Elena and Q followed after him. “We can’t see anything through the cameras, but if we look through the glass when it’s transparent… you’ll see.”

  They reached the observation deck and went up to the windows just as the bridge began to open, an inky blot of spreading darkness in space, edges uncurling and reaching out to envelop them. Their ship was pulled into the dark–

  And then there was light, or rather lights. Rings of glowing white, set at regular intervals in the tunnel. “It’s not dark.” Q pressed herself up against the glass, as if to get a closer look. “The bridges… they’re always dark. What is this?”

  “We have no idea,” Elena said. “Maybe all the bridgeheads lead through tunnels like these, and the others are just… badly maintained, with lights that don’t work any more.”

  “It does make it clear these are structures that someone made, though, doesn’t it?” Stephen said.

  “The Axiom?” Q said.

  “Maybe.” Stephen watched Q watching the lights flash past, her face alternately dark and illuminated. His lady of brightness and shadow. His vision and his guide.

  Q reared back from the wall. “What was that? Did you see? It looked like a hatch, or a window, in the tunnel wall, and there was something looking at me, with one eye – a blue eye, it glowed?” She looked at them searchingly.

  Stephen exchanged a look with Elena, and she shrugged. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see anything,” Stephen said. Maybe the stress was getting to her. But… hadn’t Callie mentioned something similar about her journey with Shall through one of these bridges, after they destroyed the Axiom station last year? A feeling like someone was watching her?

  Q kept staring out the window. “Can we… Is there a recording we can check? That was really creepy.” They emerged from the tunnel and into regular space, and Q visibly relaxed.

  “The tunnel can’t be recorded,” Shall said. “Just like the public bridges. We don’t know why. You can look at it in real-time, if you’re lucky enough to have biological eyes, but nothing shows up on the cameras, and according to my sensors, there’s nothing out there at all. That’s fine. I don’t care. I have a mind as vast as a star. I’m not jealous of your meat-body eyes, with all your jelly and humors.”

  Stephen looked at the stars, but he was no astronavigator. “Are we in the place we’re supposed to be?”

  “We are,” Janice said.

  Q turned and looked at Stephen. “You really did it? We’re here? That worked? It’s… it’s all true?”

  “You saw the Axiom station. You still doubted my story?”

  She shook her head. “Not intellectually. But the idea that you have your own personal bridge generator… It’s like, if you told me you had a magic wand, and I smiled and nodded, and maybe even believed you, because sure, why shouldn’t you have a magic wand – but then you pulled out the magic wand and did magic with it.” She leaned against the window. “It’s just really hitting me, is all. We can save Jabar. He’ll be OK. I mean, he’ll still be an asshole, but he’ll be OK.”

  Janice said, “Want me to tell the kids on the ship that rescue is incoming?”

  “Please do.” Stephen sighed. “We’re going to have to stick them in a cabin and keep them away from our viewscreens. There’s not time to take them home
before we go back to the Axiom station.”

  “Why not?” Q said. “You can travel anywhere in the galaxy in twenty seconds!”

  “We can’t just open another bridge,” Elena said. “The bridge generator has to recharge – it takes about seven hours.”

  “Your magic wand has to recharge,” Q said. “I guess nothing’s perfect.”

  “If we could get to Owain in seven hours, I’d take them home, and jump back to the Axiom station from there,” Stephen said. “But it’s too far away, so they’ll have to ride along. We’ll pick up your friends, move well away from the path of the swarm, and then jump back to the Axiom station as soon as we’re able.”

  Elena nodded. “I’ll make sure the spare cabin has everything they need, and oh, Shall, we have to kill the artificial gravity, can’t have them finding out about that. And we should think about dinner, too, with more mouths to feed – can you cook, Q? It’s Stephen’s turn, but he’s going to be busy XOing…”

  Stephen smiled. “Maybe you should be XO. You have the energy for it.”

  “Just because I’m five hundred years old doesn’t mean I have seniority.” Elena bustled away.

  Q came and leaned up against him, and he put his arm around her. “Is that all right?”

  She leaned in closer. “It’s a good start,” she said. “I feel like everything I knew has been… explosively decompressed. It’s good to have you here. Something solid. A place where I can stand.”

  “You can always count on me,” Stephen said, and meant it.

  Stephen and Q stood by the airlock and waited for Shall to link them up with the Malted Milk, a banged-up transport shuttle the approximate shape of a dented tin can. Without the canoe, they couldn’t ferry anyone over, so they had to use an umbilicus to do a direct ship-to-ship transfer, and it was fiddly, making everything line up right.

  “What are you going to tell Jabar?” Stephen said. “About his father?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to give him false hope, but I don’t want to lie, either. Though… I don’t know for sure that he’s dead. It’s not like the swarm leaves bodies to bury. Maybe he just got lost, or stranded, or broken down, like the Malted Milk did.”