Mallow

by Robert Reed

  'Which mutiny?'Washen asked.

  Aasleen understood. She laughed and straightened her back, then the folds in her badly worn uniform. 'We've heard rumors. Grumbles. Warnings.'

  'New, half-trained guards have replaced our old keepers,' Manka offered. 'And the old ones didn't look very happy about their prospects, either.'

  Faces turned to the diamond bridge and the distant images, and for a long while, nobody seemed able to speak.

  Then Saluki asked, 'What about Miocene? Is the new Master healthy, or are we going to be happy?'

  Washen almost answered.

  But as her mouth drew its breath, a new voice called to them from the entranceway, telling them, 'Miocene is very healthy, darling. Very healthy. And thank you so much for your sweet, heartfelt concerns.'

  THE NEW MASTER strode among the captains.

  She seemed unconcerned by any threat, and to the distant eye, she would have appeared to be in total control. But Washen knew this woman. The swollen face and body hid clues, and the bright uniform gave her an instant, effortless authority. But the eyes were open and obvious. They danced and settl ed on Washen, then danced again. Surrounded by once loyal captain, she seemed to be deciding which one might strike her first. Then she looked past them, those cold dark eyes contemplating enemies that couldn't be seen from here.

  In a voice that sounded in perfect control, she told Washen, 'I came. Alone, as you asked. But I assumed that it would be just the two of us, darling.'

  For a careful moment, Washen said nothing.

  Silence irritated Miocene and dragging her eyes back to Washen, with a grumbling tone, she said, 'You wanted to tell me something. You promised to "explain the ship," if I remember your words.'

  '"Explain,"' Washen responded, 'is perhaps too strong. But at least I can offer a new hypothesis about the ship's origins.' Gesturing at the long virtuewood seats, she told her fellow captains, 'Sit. Everyone, please. This explanation won't take long, I hope. I hope. But considering what I want to tell you, you might appreciate being off your feet . . .'

  WITH ONE HAND, Washen pulled the clock from her pocket, the lid popping open with the touch of her finger. Then without looking at its face, she closed it again, and holding it high, she said, 'The ship.' She said, 'How old?'

  Before anyone tried to answer, she said, 'We found it empty. We found it streaking toward us from what's perhaps the emptiest part of the visible universe. Of course, we uncovered clues to its age, but they're conflicting, imprecise clues. What's easiest to believe is that four or five or six billion years ago, in some precocious young galaxy, intelligent organic life arose, and it lived just long enough to build this marvel. To fashion the Great Ship. Then some horrific but imaginable tragedy destroyed its builders. Before they could claim their creation, they were dead. And we're just the lucky ones to find this ancient machine . . .'

  Washen paused for a moment. Then quietly and quickly, she said, 'No. No, I think the ship is much older than six billion years.'

  Miocene rose for the bait.

  'Impossible,' she declared.'How can you explain anything if you let yourself entertain that idiocy?'

  'Trace its course backward through space and time,' Washen interrupted, 'and you see galaxies. Eventually. Empty space allows us a long view, and these are some of the oldest infrared specks of light that we can see. The universe wasn't a billion years old, and the first suns were forming and detonating, spewing out the first metals into the tiny hot and exceptionally young cosmos—'

  'Too soon,' was Miocene's response. Unlike most of the audience, she was standing, and carried by a mixture of nervous energy and simple visceral anger, she approached Washen, her fists lifting, taking hard little jabs at the air. 'That's far too soon. How can you imagine that sentient life could have evolved then? In a universe with nothing to offer but hydrogen and helium and only thin traces of metals?'

  'Except that's not what I'm proposing,' Washen replied.

  The puffy face absorbed the words, and the mouth opened again. But Miocene didn't make any sound.

  'Think even older,' Washen advised. Then she glanced at Aasleen, at Promise and Dream, telling them, 'Locke explained this to me. At the center of Marrow, hydrogen and antihydrogen are created. Each fuses with its own kind. And the two kinds of helium ash are fused into carbon atoms. And the process leads to both flavors of iron, which the reactor throws together, annihilating both. And the energies from this bit of wizardry power the buttresses, and the Wayward industries, and cause Marrow to expand and contract like a great heart.'

  'We've heard about the buttress engine,' Aasleen offered.

  Washen nodded, then said, 'Under our feet, it's like the Creation.'

  A few hungry faces gave knowing nods.

  Miocene bristled but said nothing.

  'We've always accepted that the ship was carved out of an ordinary Jupiter,' Washen continued. 'And Marrow must have been carved from that Jupiter's core. But I think we're confused here. I think we've got it backward. Imagine an ancient, powerful intelligence. But it's not organic. It evolves in that rapid, dense, rich environment of the earliest universe. Using the engine beneath us, it creates hydrogen and carbon and iron. Creates every element. Our ship could have been built from scratch. From nothingness. Perhaps before the universe was cold enough and dark enough for ordinary matter to form on its own, someone constructed this place. As a lab. As a means of looking into the far, far future. Although if that's true, I wonder, why would these Builders then throw their fancy toy so very far away?' The chamber was silent. Alert.

  'Clues,' said Washen. 'They're everywhere, and they're meant to be obvious. But the mind that left them for us was strange, and I think, it was in an awful hurry.'

  She glanced up at the diamond bridge, breathed deeply and said, 'Marrow'

  She looked at Aasleen, saying, 'This is a guess. Nearly. But there are good reasons to imagine that Marrow may have been the first place where organic life evolved. Under a bright, buttress-lit sky, in an environment cold and empty compared to the surrounding universe ... the first microbes were born, then evolved into a wide range of complex organisms . . . this place serving as nothing but an elaborate stage where future kingdoms and phyla got their first tentative existence . . .

  'The engines and fuel tanks and habitats were built later. What was learned here was applied to its design. Humans found untouched stairs waiting for humanoid feet. Why? Because according to the Builders' research, organic evolution would inevitably build creatures like us. We found environmental controls ready to adjust atmospheres and temperatures according to the physiologies of our passengers. Why? Because the Builders could only guess at our specific needs, and they were eager to be helpful.

  'Remember our old genetic research?' she asked Promise and Dream. 'Marrow life-forms are ancient. More genetic diversity than anything found on normal worlds. That tends to hint that this is a very, very old place—'

  'What about those first humanoids?'Dream asked. 'What happened to them?'

  'They went extinct,' his sister replied instantly. 'Small, highly adaptable species are what's needed here. Not big apes stomping around on big feet.'

  Aasleen offered a raised hand, then her question. 'I don't understand. Why build such a big wonderful machine, then throw it away? Maybe I'm too much of an engineer, but that sounds like a miserable waste.'

  Washen dangled her clock on its chain, and she said, 'Clues,' again.

  Then she twirled her clock and flung it down the aisle, a dozen gaunt hands reaching out and missing it, the bright alloyed case hitting the floor with a hard click, then skidding toward the far end of the chamber, into the shadows and out of sight.

  'Not only did they throw it away, but they threw it where it was certain not to hit anything for a long, long while.' She spoke slowly, with a certain and easy weight. 'They sent it through the expanding universe, making sure that it pierced each wall of galaxies where the wall was thinnest.' A pause. Then, 'They didn't want it
found, obviously. And if the ship's motion had varied by a nanoscopic bit, it would have missed our galaxy, too. Missed us and continued on out of the Local Group and into another vacuous realm where it would go unnoticed for another half a billion years.'

  She paused, then said, 'The Builders.'

  She shook her head and smiled, admitting, 'I never wanted to believe in them. But they're real, or at least they were. Somehow, Diu sensed a portion of their story. And so has Till. And so have all the Waywards. Through their culture or through some preplanned epiphany, humans have the capacity to absorb and believe in a story that is probably more than fifteen billion years old ... a story from the beginnings of our Creation, and despite the cushion of time, it is a story that I suspect is still important. Still vast. Still and always, and I think we've got to face that unlikely fact . . . !'

  Miocene was staring at the floor, her face taut and startled, her fists fallen to her sides and forgotten.

  A captain shuffled toward Washen, placing her broken clock into her offered hand.

  Washen said, 'Thank you,' and waited for him to sit again. Then in a careful voice, she said, 'If the Builders were real, then there must have been the Bleak. Except I think the Waywards have things a little backwards. The Bleak didn't come from outside, trying to steal the Great Ship. At least not according to our sense of geometry.' She hesitated, not quite looking at the captains. Then she asked, 'Why would you build a great machine, then throw it away, and throw it as far as possible? Because the machine serves a specific, terrible purpose. A purpose that demands isolation and distance, plus the relative safety that comes with those blessings.

  'I can't know this for sure, but I'm guessing that the Ship is a prison.

  'Beneath us, beneath the hot iron and even underneath the buttress engine, lives at least one Bleak. I'm guessing. The buttresses are its walls. Its bars. Marrow swells and contracts to feed the buttresses and keep them in good repair. The Builders assumed that those who first boarded the ship would be careful and thorough, and Marrow would be found soon enough. Found and deciphered. But the poor Builders didn't guess, except maybe in their nightmares, that our species would come here and realize nothing, then make the Builders' prison into a passenger vessel — a place of luxury and small endless lives.' Washen paused, breathed.

  For a long moment, Miocene said nothing. Then in a low, furious voice, she asked, 'Have you spoken to my AIs?' 'Which AIs?'

  'The old scholars,' she said. Then she looked up at the arching ceiling, admitting, 'One of those machines made a similar prediction. He said that the ship is a model of the universe. He claimed that Marrow's expansion is supposed to mimic the universe's inflationary period, and then comes lifeless space, and farther out are the living spaces . . .'

  The woman shook her head, then dismissed everything with one word. 'Coincidence.'

  Aasleen asked the obvious. 'If this a prison, then where are the guards? Wouldn't the Builders leave behind something to watch over everything, and when the time came, explain it to us?'

  Locke answered.

  Standing beside and a little behind his mother, he reminded the captains, 'Guards are wonderful. Until they decide to change sides.'

  'The Bleak is imprisoned,' Washen offered, 'but I think it can whisper between the bars. If you know what I mean.'

  Haifa hundred captains muttered, 'Diu.' Muttered,'Till.'

  'Both of whom went deep inside Marrow,' Washen reminded. Then she glanced at her son, biting her lower lip before adding her last speculation.

  'The Bleak,' she said, 'isn't some Builder who turned evil.'

  She said, 'It has to be something else entirely.'

  With a booming voice, she said, 'The Builders couldn't reform the entity, or destroy it. All they could do was put it away for the time being. And now the Builders have vanished. Have died. But the thing beneath us still lives. Is still dangerous and powerful. Which pushes me toward the opinion that what we have here - what our stupid ambition has forced us to claim - is an entity even older than the Builders. Even tougher. And after it's been locked away for so long, I think it's safe to guess what it wants . . . and that it will do anything to achieve its ends . . . !'

  Fifty-one

  THE INJECTION AIRLOCKS hit the wall with a soft, sudden thump, shaped nukes piercing the hyperfiber, the roar muted by the wild keening of the pumps. Then came the abrupt purple-white flash of lasers, absolutely soundless, and Pamir hunkered down, shouting at the harum-scarum, shouting, 'Shoot the car . . . !'

  But the little car braked suddenly, slipping behind one of the empty troopships, letting the ship's lasers intercept the spray of baby nukes while its bug-shaped body absorbed the furies of every retrofitted laser and microwave shout that the harum-scarum could aim. Steel turned to slag, and the slag exploded into a fierce white-hot rain . . . and the car accelerated again, dashing past the pumping station . . . gone . . .

  The harum-scarum said nothing about his lousy aim. Pamir growled, 'Shit,' and turned to his companion, finding no one. Where the alien should have been standing, a cloud of incandescent gas and ash drifted with a deceptive peacefulness. The gangway had melted. A random blast from below, or they would have killed him, too. Pamir wheeled and sprinted for the nearest lift-tube, his laser panning for him, his most secure nexus awakened, his quick command wrapped deep in code and squirted to every team and every AI. 'Flood the bastards,' Pamir roared.

  Then he leaped inside the tube, and a lift-glove grabbed him and accelerated him upward, moving too fast for him to keep his feet under him. As if suffering from a savage beating, Pamir dropped to his knees, then his aching belly, and as he lay motionless against the padded floor, it occurred to him that the pumps' keening had changed. A deep, powerful throb rose up to him as liquid hydrogen passed through the greedy mouths, gaining a terrific velocity, a swift river born in an instant, vaster than any Amazon and fabulously, righteously furious.

  A TEAM OF harum-scarums had closed the giant valve.

  A column of frigid, pressurized hydrogen struck the valve, and the enormous fuel line shuddered, shivered and held.

  Hydrogen pooled and swirled, and half a hundred hammerwings - manned and empty - were swept down in the maelstrom. Slammed against the walls and valve, the abrupt cold shattered their alloyed hulls, splinters and anonymous gore swirling, then slowing as the pool grew deeper, settling on the bottom as a thin, uncomplaining sediment.

  At the waystation, duty threw a yoke on the panic. The ranking officer — the same officer who had allowed Washen to pass - called to Till. To Miocene. Both were below somewhere, at risk. He estimated flow rates and offered computer simulations of the impending flood, and with a dry, scared, sorry voice, he mentioned, 'Maybe sir, madam, you should close the tunnel. Save Marrow.' Preset charges would crack the new hyperfiber walls, and the collapse would seal everything. Would save the Waywards for another day . . .

  At first, Miocene didn't reply.

  Till did. With a calm, almost indifferent voice, he told everyone in his command,'The tunnel remains open. Now, and always.'

  'Now, but not always,' the officer grumbled.

  'If you can,' Till advised, 'save yourself. And if you cannot, I will kiss your soul when you are reborn again . . . !'

  The officer straightened his back, and unable to imagine any solution, he stood beside the nearest window, and waited.

  A falling hammerwing appeared.

  It was the same ship that had attacked the enemy stronghold, airlocks deployed, then shattered, its gray carapace thrown against the opposite wall and plunging into one of the waystation's buildings. There was a momentary vibration, then a high-pitched crash. Surprised, the officer realized that an atmosphere had formed outside, hydrogen fuel evaporating, forming a thick sudden wind that he could almost feel, one hand now pressed against the diamond window as the wind rose into a hurricane, then something much worse.

  'But if nobody closes the tunnel,' he whispered to himself, 'and if this flood reaches my h
ouse . . .'

  Obviously, Till didn't understand the problem.

  On a different channel, the man called to Miocene. And hoping that she was listening, he explained everything again, letting the panic creep into his voice.

  Outside, the torrent was worsening. The hydrogen had filled the fuel line level to the waystation, the first fingers of liquid racing between the buildings, then quickly rising into a wall that swept over and down, tugging and wrenching at the armored structures and at the scared little souls inside.

  To himself, staring out into that roaring blackness, the officer said, 'Shit.'

  He said, it's not supposed to be this way.'

  Then another voice joined him, close and familiar. Respected, if not loved. The voice asked, 'What are you doing?'

  'Miocene?' the man whispered. Then he explained, 'Nothing. I am waiting.'

  i don't understand . . . what . . . !'

  He said, 'Madam,'and turned, confused enough to think that perhaps the Master was standing beside him. But she wasn't there. It was just a familiar voice on his nexus, angrier than he had ever heard it before.

  Miocene screamed, 'What, what, what are you doing!'

  'Nothing at all,' the man promised.

  And again, he touched the window, feeling the brutal chill slipping through it . . . and there was a soft, almost inconsequential creak from somewhere close . . . and the man's last act was to pull his eyes shut, something in that very simple, very ancient reflex lending him the strength to keep standing his ground . . .

  Fifty-two

  'WHAT, WHAT, WHAT are you doing?!'

  The question roared out of every one of Miocene's mouths and through every nexus, and it exploded from the flesh and spit and ceramic-toothed mouth inside the Great Temple. Her words were carried up the newly made Spine, then amplified, passengers and crew listening in a horrified amazement as the ship's new Master seemed to be asking each of the cowering fools to explain what they were doing.

  Billions answered.