InterstellarNet: New Order

by Edward M. Lerner

  Art yet again eyeballed the secondary gauges and idiot lights on the back of Keizo’s spacesuit, where everything continued to register as nominal. He tapped his friend’s shoulder so Keizo could return the favor. Five other pairs in the crowded airlock were going through the same procedure. Most were diplomats.

  A comm test followed the safety drill. Their helmet radios provided twenty coded channels, permitting plenty of private conversations, and a public band. Had Chung not been a humanist, all that private conversation could, with far greater simplicity, have used neural implants to access the team’s wireless local network.

  “Switching to ambient light.”

  Illumination in the airlock faded to the dimness they would experience on the docking platform. Inverse-square law, Art thought, as nano-scaled photomultipliers in his visor kicked in. Had he been more patient, his eyes would have adjusted. Jupiter was just over five times farther from the sun than Earth. Any given area here intercepted less than four percent of the light it would catch in Earth’s neighborhood. Possibly just a coincidence, lighting inside the starship would be similar. A low-wattage incandescent bulb gave a good approximation of the light at habitable distances from a red dwarf sun like Barnard’s Star.

  “Depressurizing.” Humming faded as less and less air remained to carry the sound of the pumps. Keizo’s mouth moved silently; he suddenly looked panicked. Art touched helmets. “You okay? Meet me,” he checked his heads-up display for an idle channel, “on band four.”

  The rigidity of the inflated spacesuit in the now depressurized airlock defeated Keizo’s attempt to shrug. He tapped the channel selection into his forearm keypad. “Oops. Thanks. It freaked me out that you didn’t respond. I hadn’t selected a band.”

  For many reasons, from similar interests to her experience in a spacesuit, Art wished Eva were here. They could both have kept an eye on Keizo. As it happened, Art’s desires were immaterial; Montoya had vetoed her participation. She knew too much about the UP’s antimatter program.

  Finally, the outer hatch irised open. The contact team tromped down the ramp to the docking platform. Through the air in his suit and the medium of his own body came the clank of his magnetic soles striking the metal ramp and deck plating.

  Two arcs of scarcely waist-high figures awaited them. White spacesuits and silvered visors blocked any direct view of the aliens, behind whom gaped the outer hatch of the starship’s own airlock. A high-pitched squeal warbled in Art’s ears, in the mutually agreed-upon clear channel. “Welcome to Victorious,” appended a familiar voice. The synthesized speech sounded like Pashwah. A clone, Art decided. Light delay made it impossible for the original agent on Earth to do translations.

  “No identification or title given,” Keizo said on the all-hands private band. “Nor did the speaker show himself, such as by stepping forward or raising an arm. We know K’vithians use personal names, and that their culture is hierarchical. I theorize that their high officials remained inside.”

  One of the shorter humans stepped in front of the rest; he towered over the K’vithians. “Thank you for your hospitality. I am Ambassador Hong-yee Chung. On behalf of the United Planets, welcome to human space.” A high-pitched squeaking followed, Chung’s remarks translated by a human-created AI.

  Art had to respect Chung’s attentiveness to the diplomatic niceties, as their surroundings kept distracting him. The ship’s rotation manifested itself in the wheeling overhead of stars, nearby Callisto, and mighty Jupiter. This near the spin axis magnetic boots held him securely, but centrifugal force still tugged at his body. Let’s go. Spacesuit shielding notwithstanding, humans belonged inside, protected from Jupiter’s vast but invisible radiation belt.

  Lights sparkled and flared as spectator ships jockeyed for position. What a zoo it was out there! Had the UP sent twice as many ships to keep order, they would not have sufficed.

  Finally, a Snake gestured at the open airlock. Mixed groups of humans and aliens cycled through the lock, beyond which waited more greeters. Spacesuited ETs marched off, presumably to shed their vacuum gear. The corridor, like the airlock, was amply tall for humans. Parallel lines of small holes marked the ceiling as far as Art could see. Similar rows of holes marked the ceiling and wall of a cross corridor. Decoration?

  The aliens were whippet-thin, iridescent-scaled bipeds. Their faces seemed less humanoid than their bodies, probably because of the upward-oriented third eye near the apex of the skull. They lacked noses, their nostrils lying flush with the plane of the face. Each extremity bore four digits, one opposable; the tips of razor-sharp retractable talons were barely visible in hands and sandaled feet. More than half their greeters displayed the back-of-the-neck scalloped ornamental ridge of a male.

  All wore belted, jumpsuit-like garments of a common fashion, made of a plastic-like material. Similarities in clothing, despite differences in ornamentation and color, suggested uniforms. The largest Snake stood about 125 centimeters tall.

  “Helmets stay on,” Art reminded everyone. K’vithian and terrestrial life alike were CHON-based, but…. “Yes, there’s oxygen, but these guys like concentrations of volcanic gas we’d find toxic, especially sulfur dioxide. And keep your suit heaters on. It won’t be much above freezing.”

  An honor guard waited in two parallel ranks. Their ramrod postures conveyed energy, discipline, and utter seriousness. These guys were scary: like erect, pack-hunting pumas who had evolved intelligence. Who had built a starship. Who almost certainly used vast quantities of antimatter. Art was suddenly glad to be wearing a pressure suit. It cloaked, he hoped, an uncontrollable shiver.

  One of the taller aliens raised his arms in welcome, fingers spread. His uniform was white and starkly unadorned. His thin lips parted but did not further move as he spoke a sequence of squeals. An overhead speaker declared, “I am Arblen Ems Firh Mashkith, Foremost of this vessel. Please follow me to our meeting room.”

  Mashkith strode briskly, humans and Hunter officers in tow. The hulking visitors, despite their bulky pressure suits, kept pace without difficulty. The carefully planned route threaded featureless corridors and elevators. Crew streamed back and forth, as ordered—and as ordered, none spoke to the humans. The doors they passed were secured. Gravity increased toward K’vith standard as they trended “uphill,” away from the spin axis. K’vith standard was a bit below the Earth norm, possibly enough to confuse their reflexes.

  This is not the time to dwell on petty tactical advantages, Mashkith chastised himself. This is a moment for boldness.

  As though reading his Foremost’s mind, Pashwah-qith netted to him, “The die is cast.”

  Mashkith still marveled how openly the humans revealed themselves on their infosphere. The die is cast: It was the declaration of an ancient Earth warlord leading his legions across the river Rubicon to invade Rome. He had cast the die for Arblen Ems twenty long Earth-years earlier. Let another quote from Caesar’s War Commentaries now be his guide.

  I came. I saw. I conquered.

  Over his real-time vision Mashkith had superimposed an augmented-reality overlay: what lay behind each door, what was controlled by each switch, anything that might evoke inappropriate curiosity in their guests. Translucent icons that characterized radio chatter hovered in the corners of his enhanced vision. Besides the open channel to which all had agreed, the humans communicated over a fluctuating number of encrypted bands—prudent, not impolite. His mind’s ear did its best to sort out real-time translations of the open channel, and of everything relevant the ship’s sensors managed to overhear through helmets. Intuition and AI assistants sought in their separate ways to filter from the flood of data that which was most significant and time-sensitive.

  “…and behind this door is a bank of fuel cells, providing emergency backup power on this deck. Not very interesting, I think. Standard Leo technology, the same as humans now use.”

  Pashwah-qith’s commentary rumbled unintelligibly in human frequencies, the clan-interspeak version scrolling up
the virtual display in a corner of Mashkith’s mind’s eye. He had no certain way to know an agent’s translation was accurate, but doctrine had an answer for that.

  Mashkith and an AI had worked on interspeak drafts until he was confident the lecture disclosed nothing critical about the ship, and the AI had assured him the vocabulary and its connotations were wholly unthreatening. His only choices had been interspeak or the language of a Great Clan—trade agents were not burdened with the “minor dialects.” It grated—but after this quest succeeded, Arblen Ems would be a great clan. The greatest clan.

  “These double doors open into storage holds. They contain such items as spare parts, chemical supplies, emergency seeds for restarting aeroponics, sheet and bar metal.”

  “Excuse me.” (“Arthur Walsh, chief technologist of their Interstellar Commerce Union,” read a pop-up icon in Mashkith’s augmented vision.) “I’m approximating from the distance between doors, but that fuel-cell room is clearly quite narrow. Judging from the gravity, we’re fairly near the ship’s surface. So that’s a shallow room, too.”

  At least that was what Mashkith believed to have been said. Just as three agent clones had independently translated the prepared speech back to interspeak as a check, three clones monitored everything now being said to and by the humans. Lothwer would switch translators the instant two or more AI observers questioned anything being said to the humans or about the accuracy of the translations.

  “Foremost, my apologies. Dr. Walsh, as a reminder, you will recall we agreed earlier that as a courtesy to our hosts we would gather, organize and prioritize our questions.” (“Ambassador Chung. Voice stress analysis indicates annoyance.”) Pause, then, “You will not bring your customary lack of discipline into these meetings.” Whatever had elicited the rebuke was unknowable, radioed to Chung by encrypted channel. Chung’s reply was returned in the same way—but his inexplicable use of a helmet microphone rather than a neural implant allowed eavesdropping. “I don’t care about fuel-cell efficiencies.” (“Controlled anger.”)

  Mashkith addressed only the public comments. “We find merit in your structured approach, Mr. Ambassador.” Mashkith, too, was quietly furious. At himself. He had approved the path through Victorious and the description to be given of their route. Any course through the ship inevitably passed some key subsystem or potential vulnerability he had preferred not to disclose. The cabin now receiving unwanted attention actually contained a key secondary backup comm node, not fuel cells. Walsh was correct: Standard fuel cells in a room that size would not be much of a back-up. But which lie did the human suspect? One about fuel-cell technology or one about how the ship was being described?

  That question must wait; the designated Pashwah-qith had resumed the prepared script. Mashkith still needed to concentrate—even translated, English seemed to require explicit verbs. He hoped in time to become accustomed to it.

  “We have arrived at our conference room. I apologize for the long walk, but we have few rooms tall enough for you.” The centerpiece of the chamber was a newly constructed table. Hard, backless stools allowed the humans to sit despite backpacks and oxygen tanks. In almost one Earth gravity, the unsupported weight hanging behind the stools would be uncomfortable. Distractingly so, was the theory.

  Soon standing crew and seated visitors were almost eye to eye. “Please make yourselves comfortable. My officers and I welcome you aboard. As our species come physically together for the first time, Victorious has earned her name. We have indeed conquered interstellar space.”

  An unattractive bass growl ensued. (“Chung clears his throat. No meaning.”) “We would like once more to express our admiration and appreciation for your great journey. The worlds of the United Planets look forward to a new level in an already long and fruitful relationship.”

  “I propose that we introduce ourselves briefly,” Mashkith said. “If that is satisfactory, Ambassador, will you begin?”

  Chung and his people droned on. Whenever the presentations lagged, Pashwah-qith encouraged them with requests for an additional detail, or drove them to repetition and circumlocution with assertions of difficulties in translation.

  All the while, hidden cameras behind the humans watched their backpack tell-tales. Mashkith watched their oxygen reserves ebb. When encrypted radio traffic ramped up, Mashkith did not need the humans’ codes to understand the gist: time to go.

  Which meant almost time to get to the point.

  What advantage, wondered Art, did this faceplate-to-face meeting have over ship-to-ship broadcasts? The tour had certainly been a disappointment. He was on an alien starship, but all he had seen were tunnels like those in habitats across the solar system. His first attempt to get a little useful information—the blistering reprimand Chung had delivered over a private radio band made clear how impolitic the remark had been—had gotten him nowhere. Now his mission colleagues were extemporizing life stories, although bio files could be zapped across in a moment.

  And why the circuitous route through the ship? The Foremost had said there were few rooms tall enough for humans. But if the goal were to scale things for the Snake crew, why not build the meeting room near the on-axis airlock? Why build a long, convoluted, human-height path that meandered through the ship?

  Arrrgh. “Are you getting anything useful from this?” Art asked Keizo on a private channel. “Please say you are.”

  “These ritualistic ceremonies? Ordinarily I might, for example by interpreting individual reactions to the repetitions, but dialoguing through AIs filters out much of the cultural context.”

  In short: no. “They came six light-years to be here. When do they plan to actually talk about it? I mean, how did they do it? How long was the trip? Why visit us, rather than, say, the equally close-to-them Centaurs … or did they also send a ship to Alpha Centauri? Where do they want to visit in our solar system? What was the accident? What help do they need?”

  The sulfur dioxide-tainted atmosphere nearly balanced the pressure inside their spacesuits; this time Keizo accomplished a recognizable, if awkward, shrug. “Patience, Art. In many cultures, including that of my Japanese ancestors, to open a discussion with business matters is extremely rude.”

  “I’ve dealt for years with Pashwah, from whom this translator was evidently cloned. She is always direct and business-like. Hell, she’s brusque by my standards and I have no manners.” Just ask Chung. “The ICU was told that she is based on Snake psychology and culture, the better to represent them.”

  “The K’vithians may have multiple cultures, just as we do,” Keizo suggested. “Perhaps the Foremost is from a tradition less mainstream than most. Ambassador Chung, after all, maintains a quaint resistance to the use of neural implants.”

  “Whatever differences exist between the team members, we all represent the UP as a whole. No one’s behavior differs radically from that of Talleyrand,” the UP’s trade agent to the Snakes, Pashwah’s distant counterpart. “It just seems odd to me that these Snakes behave so different than their own long-term representative.” Art zapped yet another unsolicited message to Chung, urging specific topics to be raised.

  The curt response came quickly: not now.

  Rambling introductions continued until Chung began squirming in his seat. “I’m afraid we must return soon to our shuttle. Our oxygen tanks have a limited capacity, of course.”

  “How unfortunate, Mr. Ambassador.” The Foremost gestured towards the door. “As fruitful as this has been, I will not keep you. Please, let us escort you to the lock.”

  Fruitful? Try “certifiably content-free.” Their closest approach to an accomplishment, interpreting that term generously, was an in-passing conceptual agreement on the merits of cultural exchange. Art dismounted from the uncomfortable stool, a foot long ago fallen asleep prickling in protest. Had the Snakes wanted a session this boring and unproductive? Could they have been wasting time until the humans had to leave?

  Why had they come so far only to be reticent?

 
At the doorway, the Foremost stopped. “Ambassador Chung,” the Pashwah clone said on the alien leader’s behalf. “There is one final matter I had hoped to address today. You will recall our radioed mention we would require help. You have seen the injury to our hull; you can understand how such a need has arisen. There are replacement supplies we wish to acquire.”

  Oxygen warning lights on several spacesuits glowed amber, Chung’s among them. They had to leave. “Yes, of course,” Chung said hurriedly. He pointed to an assistant. “Mr. Caruthers will facilitate your resupply. Please let him know your needs.”

  Substance, finally! How interesting that the Foremost had waited until his human counterpart was rushed and distracted. “I’d like to help. My ICU connections should prove useful in expediting commercial arrangements.”

  Art got a very public and disapproving glare. On the private radio band, Chung added, “Caruthers picked his own staff.”

  Which, while surely intended as a rejection, wasn’t explicit. Good enough.

  CHAPTER 9

  Space near the starship began thinning out for the most mundane of reasons: consumption of maneuvering fuel. Helmut grunted his approval. It had gotten far too congested out here. As ships continued to leave, he decided that station-keeping was finally within the capabilities of the Odyssey‘s autopilot.

  Best to take advantage before the tourists refueled and returned.

  He tugged his captain’s cap down over his eyes, relaxing for the first time in days. Corinne murmured sotto voce behind him, dry-running another broadcast. Her Nielsen-Sony ratings were astronomical. He drifted off to sleep to the soothing purr of her voice.

  He’d worn the battered hat more or less forever, since his first command. It was his only physical memento of those days. Never cleaned, the cap did not lack for odors—and smell is the most basic and evocative of senses, wired to very primitive parts of the brain. Including to memory centers….