The Eridani Convergence

by Alastair Mayer

  Resistance would be—and had been—met with draconian counter-force. History—two wars in which nuclear weapons had been used—had demonstrated the less pleasant alternative. Eventually, people got the idea.

  “You’re right up to a point,” Ducayne said. “The Velkaryans and the CDSP would be allowed starships and a lot of other high-tech gear under the Technology Rule. However, there are other rules in place governing weapons-grade fissionables and certain other technologies. Warp generators have a series of fail-safe interlocks to prevent them from being activated in atmosphere or even on the ground in a vacuum chamber, for example. Not impossible to bypass, but not easy.”

  “Good to know.” Carson himself had witnessed what happened when even a small warp field—they had guessed that was how the device worked—was activated in atmosphere. Like a nuclear hand grenade, he remembered.

  “Yeah. The thing is, because those rules aren’t part of the Technology Rule agreement, the peace enforcers can’t do surprise armed inspections. Criminal laws apply, so with probable cause we—well, the police authorities—can get search warrants, but that’s not the same.”

  “So,” Carson said, “the Velkaryans could be building weapons in secret.”

  “It’s no secret that they’re making weapons. There’s a small-arms company owned by known Velkaryans, for example.” Ducayne shook his head. “There’s nothing illegal about that. It’s just the mass-destruction type stuff they’re banned from, like everyone else.

  “The question is,” he continued, “what are they planning to do with it? That weapons company, for example. They sell most of their product. It’s a legitimate business, it makes money. But they don’t sell it all. They have warehouses loaded with the stuff. That’s not illegal either; any manufacturing business does that. The local regulatory agencies—in the countries that worry about it—will even do spot checks to make sure the inventory is in the warehouse like they say it is. But so long as they’re not selling it to prohibited countries, or local criminals, nobody really much cares. As far as the Velkaryans are concerned, the latter is too small a market for them to risk, and the former would open them up to Union enforcement.

  “Of course, there are places that aren’t so fussy. Some of the colonies, for example. Or now Venezuela.” Ducayne made a sour look at that last.

  This was mostly new to Carson. He was dimly aware of some of it, from general reading and his short time in the reserves, but it wasn’t something he thought much about. “Then they could be arming for . . . something. But there’s no real evidence that they are?”

  “My job is to worry about capabilities more than probabilities. If someone isn’t capable of something, they aren’t going to do it. If they do have the capability, then we start worrying about intentions. And the Velkaryans have the capability.”

  “And we already know their intentions are, well, not good.” Carson had had enough personal experience with that.

  “Now you’re getting it.”

  “I’m not sure I want to.”

  Just then Malcolm Brown rapped at the door frame, the office door being still open. “Sorry I’m late, something came up. You wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, come on in.” Carson rose to leave, but Ducayne stopped him. “Stay, you should hear this too.”

  “Hear what?” Brown asked.

  “Confirmation from Earth. They checked all the reports; local and state police, hospitals, federal authorities, the lot. Rico’s body was never found.”

  “What?” Brown said. “Does that mean he’s still alive?”

  “No confirmation of that either. We don’t think the Velkaryans took him. They’d certainly have no reason to take his body unless they thought he was still alive, but they had some cleanup of their own to do. If he is in their hands, it might not be going well for him.”

  “You don’t think he’d just change sides?” Carson asked. “He switched to ours pretty readily when we were his only way off of Chara III.”

  “And then he went above and beyond to help you get away from the Velkaryans at Lalande 21185, didn’t he? I don’t think he likes the Velkaryans. We did some digging into his background.”

  It was true. Rico might have been a criminal, but he was intelligent and from what Carson had seen, had no love for Velkaryans. He’d blown up their ship at Lalande 21185. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have said that. But they could have retrieved his body on the off-chance he was still alive, then dumped it somewhere if he wasn’t.”

  Brown wore a sour expression. Rico had been, apparently, killed in a shoot-out at the Denver Spaceport. Brown and Rico had gone to Earth to obtain—steal, as it turned out—the photographs from the original Blue Book files, because the available digitized microfilm copies were unreadable. The Velkaryans also wanted them, and Rico’s shoot-out had bought Brown time to get away with the files. “What are we doing about it?” he asked.

  “There isn’t a lot that we can do,” said Ducayne. “Keeping our eyes and ears open for any sign of him, as well as signs of any information that the Velkaryans, or anyone else, might have now that they didn’t before, and could have come from Rico. All we know is that by the time the authorities responded to the shoot-out, everyone was gone. Sorry I don’t have anything more positive.”

  “No,” Brown said. “That’s something, anyway. He would have made a good field agent; he was very resourceful.”

  He was that, Carson mused.

  CHAPTER 20: OPERATION JADE RIBBON

  Vaughan

  Velkaryan HQ, Earth

  PROJECTS DIRECTOR Lancaster Hubble finished congratulating the others at the conference table on the success of Operation Piranha. The Velkaryan party had, by massive campaigning as well as bullying, bribing and downright hacking, won the government elections in Venezuela, their most significant win yet. But there would be more to come, both on Earth and off.

  “So again,” Hubble said, “let me extend the High Command’s congratulations to those of you involved with Piranha. But that brings me to the next item. Because of that success, Command wants to accelerate the schedule for Jade Ribbon, and that presents us with a problem.”

  Operation Jade Ribbon was named for an extremely venomous flying snake native to Verdigris. The operation covered both increasing Velkaryan hold over the planet’s regional government, and stepping up the output of their starship factory in New Toronto. If Velkaryan-held planets were ultimately going to declare independence from Earth government, they had to be self-sufficient. If those starships were armed, so much the better. But there were problems with production. While they had a few completed ships, dozens more were on the ground at New Toronto awaiting critical parts. That was bad.

  Missed deliveries aside, having them in one place like that increased the risk of discovery. They were usually screened by the floating skyweed over the city, but that wasn’t perfect cover. A picture from an overflying spacecraft would be evidence that Homeworld Security, or some similar agency, could take to the Union de Terre. The next step could be UdT forces dropping and forcing inspections or sanctions, with little even their new Venezuelan presence on the council could do about it. Hubble and the others knew that would come eventually, but they wanted to be prepared for it. They weren’t yet. The former Operations Director on Verdigris had, along with his deputy and several technicians, suffered an unfortunate accident during a weapons test. The physical damage had been repaired quickly enough, that wasn’t the issue. But the current acting-director just wasn’t up to the job.

  After some discussion around the table, the consensus was that the New Toronto operation needed some more-forceful oversight. Klaus Vaughan, who had worked for the old Operations Director before being ordered to follow Carson to Zeta Reticuli, was the ideal candidate. Except that he was useful where he was, on Tanith at 82 Eridani, nineteen light-years from Verdigris. And four weeks away, by the time orders reached him.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “Do we have anyone else who has been on the groun
d there and is as good?” Hubble asked.

  “Max Lafont is doing a good job for us on Kakuloa. He could be there in under three weeks, if we want to move him.”

  “He hasn’t been to Verdigris in over a year, he’s not up on the current situation.” Blomberg objected.

  “What about someone from here? Lippert has been working Jade Ribbon from this side for a while,” Collani, at the far end of the table, said.

  “Not him, I need him here. A week or two shouldn’t make that much difference. Vaughan it is. Agreed?”

  There were murmurs of agreement and nods of assent from around the table.

  “Okay, let’s tell Vaughan to get his ass back to New Toronto. I assume Mayflower is halfway to Tanith by now, so send a message to Verdigris, tell them to courier the orders.”

  “You’re right about the Mayflower,” Blomberg said, “but her sister ship Speedwell is in port and departs tomorrow. A message sent that way will get there close to the same time one via Verdigris does.”

  “That would mean we don’t have to dispatch a ship from there, and would attract less attention,” Collani said.

  “All right. That still gives him two more weeks to continue organizing at Tanith. Good.” Hubble turned to Blomberg. “Send the orders. Give him a couple of days to wrap things up and turn operations over to the local office, but tell him to get to New Toronto asap. We’ll have orders waiting for him when he arrives.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Oh, and include an update of the situation here and on Verdigris. Give him a chance to catch up on the trip.”

  “Got it,” Blomberg said, scribbling away on his data pad.

  “And step up training. We need more people capable of taking over large operations on short notice.”

  CHAPTER 21: APPROACHING TANITH

  Roberts

  Starship Sophie, deep space near 82 Eridani

  AS PROGRAMMED, the Sophie dropped out of warp high above the ecliptic plane of 82 Eridani, avoiding the debris disk, and took high-resolution images to let Roberts ascertain her position in the system.

  The three inner, hot super-Earths were easy to pick out from both their optical and infra-red brightness. These all orbited within what would be the orbit of Mercury in the Sol system, rocky worlds nearly three times the mass of Earth, inhospitable to life. More like super-Venuses than super-Earths, thought Roberts.

  The outer gas giant was also easily spotted, although it was more of a ringless Saturn than a Jupiter. Where was Tanith?

  There, a small azure dot in the habitable zone, 118 million kilometers from the yellow star. Although dimmer than Sol, making it as bright as her own Tau Ceti, the difference wasn’t noticeable to the eye. There should be an automated beacon in this system, but it wasn’t detectable this far out. The Cerulean Cloud’s recent visit notwithstanding, this place was still far enough out that it didn’t get a lot of traffic.

  She checked the database and had the computer cross check the images she’d just taken, then set a course for deeper into the system. Two minutes in warp ought to do it.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The Sophie picked up the beacon’s transmission when she was a bit over a million kilometers from the planet, twice the distance of Tanith’s single moon, Anaid. The transmission gave the usual information—which frequencies were monitored, typical approach vectors, specifics of planetary mass, rotation and atmosphere (as if those wouldn’t be in every ship’s database) and so on. That all assumed a ship was interested in landing at the main settlement, the only one with any kind of spaceport. In practice there was little to prevent her from landing almost anywhere on the planet, local terrain permitting.

  Roberts had no reason to avoid the spaceport, and several good reasons to land there. Aside from the package pick-up for Ducayne, she had mail to deliver. The “mail” was mostly electronic, and most of that was data dumps to synchronize Tanith’s planetary internet with the interstellar net. When she left she’d be taking any local updates with her; interstellar courier fees helped keep her in business, and there were occasionally other perks as well. In Tanith’s case, a significant reduction in landing fees. The beacon had told her about those, too. Ben had warned her back on Skead, but she’d been skeptical. There was plenty of empty space on the planet, so the fees were avoidable unless one had good reason to visit Harp City. The fee hike didn’t make much sense to her.

  There was one other item of information about the spaceport: it was closed for the night. What?

  Roberts checked the planetary map on another of her control screens. Yes, Harp City was on the dark side of the planet right now; local time was almost two hours until midnight. She had no problem landing in the dark on a prepared field, but there was a local noise ordinance in effect. Apparently, the locals didn’t like being woken up by the sound of spacecraft taking off or landing. Then why put the spaceport so close to town? Jackie rolled her eyes. On the other hand, the port would save on personnel costs if it didn’t have to be staffed around the clock. Any inbound ships would have already been in space for a week or more. If another few hours made a difference, they could declare an emergency. She had plenty of life support reserves; she could wait until morning.

  CHAPTER 22: A NEW ARTIFACT

  Carson

  Homeworld Security, Sawyers World

  IT WAS THE day after Ducayne’s news about Rico’s body, or lack thereof, and about the Velkaryans in Venezuela, when he called Carson and Brown into his office again.

  “Doctors,” Ducayne said as Carson and Brown entered the office, and gestured to the visitor chairs. “Coffee?”

  “Certainly. I never turn down your coffee, you get the good stuff. Black please,” Brown said.

  “Rank does have its privileges.”

  Brown nodded. “Indeed. You’re being solicitous,” he said. “What horrible thing are you about to spring on us?”

  “You know me too well, Malcolm. I’ll get to that in a moment. Carson?”

  Carson thought Malcolm might be right about Ducayne’s intentions. “No coffee, thanks. But now I am intrigued.”

  Ducayne handed Brown a cup from the small autochef, then took another and seated himself. He took a sip, paused for a moment, then said, “I see you’ve been running queries regarding various kinds of cuneiform, the symbols on the Belize wreckage, and any reported markings on vehicles described in the Blue Book files.”

  “Sure,” said Brown, “I told you we were investigating that.”

  “You did. What you didn’t know is that there’s another source of alien script, and the search looked at that, too. It found a match.”

  “What?” Carson sat forward in his chair. This was new. “What script? What did it match?” He hesitated, and then “And why didn’t it report it to us, or at least Brown?”

  Ducayne held up a hand. “I’ll get to that. As to the last, it’s because the other item was for my eyes only for now.”

  “Oh?”

  “I had my reasons. Here’s the story:

  “Two weeks ago I got a message from my agent on Tanith. Apparently, an artifact had been found in the system, high tech but old. I got a description and some images. My agent didn’t have the actual artifact in hand at the time.”

  “Tanith? 82 Eridani?” Carson was confused. “There’s never been signs of an intelligent species there. Why would Spacefarers, or the Kesh, be interested?”

  “I didn’t say Spacefarers, but the place is halfway between Sol and Zeta Reticuli. It’s on the Betty Hill star map, for whatever that’s worth.”

  Carson scoffed at that. It didn’t seem to be worth much, from what Brown had told him. “Where is the artifact now, and what was the context of the finding?”

  “As far as I know, still at 82 Eridani. My agent expected to be able to retrieve it shortly and I arranged for a ship to get out there to pick it up. Most likely the Sophie if Captain Roberts stuck to her flight plan.” Ducayne nodded in Carson’s direction. “There are also backup options if not. I haven
’t heard back yet, but could any day now.”

  “And the language?” Brown asked.

  “Matched the fragments on the Belize wreckage, and also matched – to the same degree of confidence that the description was accurate—the symbol on your Socorro ‘close encounter of the second kind.’“

  Brown raised his eyebrows. “I’m surprised you know the phrase, you must have been reading my reports.”

  “I don’t ask you to write those just for make-work,” Ducayne said.

  “Then the Eridani script has curved as well as straight lines?” Carson asked. “Can we see the images?”

  “Yes, and yes.” Ducayne touched a control to bring up an image on the small wall screen beside his desk.

  The screen showed an apparatus of some kind—nothing in the image gave it scale—which could have been a piece of avionics gear, or lab equipment, or even a musical instrument so far as Carson could tell. From the picture, it looked metallic and cylindrical. There was no reference for scale, although if what looked like a display panel and control pads were human-sized, the thing would be maybe a half-meter in diameter. The writing on it looked like labels for controls or read-outs, so more probably a piece of equipment, and not the alien equivalent of a tuba. The marks had a strong stylized-cuneiform feel, similar to those he’d seen on Ketzshanass’s communicator back at Zeta Reticuli. Some of the glyphs also included short curved segments, almost like accent marks in some European languages. He could see why the search had picked up the connections.

  Carson studied the image. “It certainly looks like industrial or better level technology, not terrestrial. The symbols and general style are nothing like the disintegrator we found back on Chara III, so it probably wasn’t something the Spacefarers left.”