by Linda Nagata
“I agree,” Vytet said.
“So where did all that matter go?” Shoran wanted to know. “Is it still tied up in these fragments of . . . what was the term you used?”
“Megastructures,” Pasha said. “Is there even another possibility? Surely there’s not been enough time for debris to re-gather into a planetary body or even into an accretion disc.”
“We hope to find out today,” Vytet answered.
<><><>
The first image to be displayed came from Dragon’s telescope alone. A Dull Intelligence swiftly combined it with a digital image from Griffin, producing a sharper picture of Tanjiri. Pasha squinted, instinctively trying to bring into focus several tiny blurs of what looked like reflected light, scattered at a uniform distance around the pale yellow star. A tag popped up:
Average estimated distance of orbital bodies from the central star: 0.78 astronomical units.
An astronomical unit, an AU, was the distance that had once separated Earth from Sun . . . and maybe it still did. No one knew for sure.
Murmurs erupted, whispered questions. Pasha gripped an armrest to stop herself from rising to her feet. “What are we looking at?” she asked herself aloud.
“The shape of these objects suggests a crescent,” someone in back said. “Could they be planetary objects in partial light?”
“Or could they be surviving structures?” another voice asked.
A discussion ensued, the planetary hypothesis gaining support when an analysis of the spectra revealed strong indications of water and an oxygen-bearing atmosphere.
After forty minutes, image data began to stream in from Khonsu’s telescope. The DI cross-matched time and angle, working to integrate it with the existing image to reveal even more detail.
Pasha leaned forward, anxious for the update, hoping it would allow a clearer view of the ruins if that’s what they were, or, far better, reveal an indication of surviving life.
She hoped for proof of life with a child’s eager hope, even as she reminded herself not to let hope influence her judgment. No matter what the refined image showed, she had to view it with an impartial mind. She had to see what was actually there and not just what she wished to see.
The existing image on the projection screen blurred—a dramatic touch, a clear demarcation—before snapping back into focus. Across the watching audience, a collective gasp. Pasha’s hand rose to cover her open mouth.
The best image from last year—the fully integrated image—had shown only glints and shadows that might have been nothing more than tiny flaws in the lenses or random errors in the integration algorithm. This year, with the data newly integrated from Khonsu, those glints were now, undeniably, objects.
In this iteration, the DI had used a screen to block out the direct light of the star, allowing a better look at the surrounding space.
Pasha could now clearly see the lit crescent of a planet or a planetoid, a moon, something . . . tiny in the overall span of the image but sharply defined and so tantalizingly bright blue in color it commanded the eye to gaze upon it. And paired with it, a smaller crescent, also blue, but not so sharply rendered.
Naresh again, coolly confident: “The larger crescent must be Tanjiri-2. It’s right where the planet should be, but—”
He broke off as another tag popped into existence on the image. Pasha leaned forward to read it. It confirmed Naresh’s evaluation, labeling the larger crescent as the known planet, Tanjiri-2.
“This is quite extraordinary,” Vytet said breathlessly.
“It’s impossible,” Naresh said, anger edging his voice.
This time, Pasha could not resist rising to her feet. She spoke out, defiant, incredulous. “Tanjiri-2 has no moon!”
It never used to have a moon. She’d read the reports. She was certain of this. There was no moon, not even a small rocky body, but in this image the planet appeared to have gained a partner, a smaller world to be sure, but a living world.
“I think we’re looking past the biggest miracle,” Shoran said, projecting her powerful voice over the ongoing murmur of argument. “The living world, the originally inhabited world, still exists! It wasn’t destroyed to create the cordon. It still has atmosphere, an ocean. We might be able to walk there someday, stand on an alien shore.”
Pasha’s heart raced. Shoran was right. There might still be people living on that world and there would surely be life of some kind. And life was precious. Living worlds so very rare.
She flinched at a touch against her hand. Shoran, with a meaningful look toward her empty seat. Sheepishly, Pasha sat down again.
On the dais, Vytet was as awed as anyone. He drew a deep breath, shook his head in wonderment. “All right,” he murmured. A second breath to steady his voice, get his shock under control. “First pass analysis. Both worlds—the old and the new—have atmospheres and—we’ll need to check the spectra of course but I think Shoran is correct—both have oceans. Even that moon, that new, inexplicable moon. Tanjiri-2b, let’s call it! Are they living oceans? We can’t know yet but I want to think so. By the Waking Light! I never imagined we’d find such a thing. A newly created world. A living world.”
“Let’s take a step back,” Naresh said. “No other planetary bodies have been tagged in this image. But historical records assure us there were once additional worlds.”
Vytet cocked his head in an attitude of listening, and then looked out at Naresh. “The DI processing these images has not been able to resolve any other planetary bodies.”
Pasha drew a deep breath. The absence of other planets was eerie but not unexpected. She asked, “If Tanjiri-1 still exists, would it be visible from this angle of view? Or is it possible that it’s passed behind the star? Or behind . . . one of those other objects?”
Those other objects . . .
So far, no one had called them out directly. It was as if they were all in tacit agreement to discuss the most familiar objects first.
“Let’s get a projected position for the inner planet,” Vytet said.
A broad, bright crescent appeared, much larger and closer to the star than Tanjiri-2. The inner planet had been a gas giant in close orbit. If it still existed, it would have been clearly visible at the time the image was recorded.
“So it’s not there,” Pasha concluded.
Kona spoke up for the first time. Pasha had not noticed him before, standing in the shadows at the far end of the first row. “How the hell do you take apart a planet?”
Riffan answered from the back of the room. “Honestly, I hope we never figure that part out.”
This earned a low general chuckle.
“Still, it’s a question we have to ask,” Naresh said. “It’s gravity that holds a world together. Even if you could shatter a planet, gravity will pull most of the matter back—”
“But surely they manipulated gravity,” Shoran interrupted.
“Yes,” Vytet said. “There is no other explanation for it. They developed something as unexpected as the reef, only on a massive scale.”
A giddy laugh from Riffan. “Ah, but if we are going to entertain impossibilities then there are other explanations. Perhaps they’ve manipulated time, or opened seams between parallel universes, allowing disruptive forces to bleed through, or maybe they’ve folded the fabric of space to create brief tidal forces strong enough to tear worlds apart.”
Several seconds of silence followed this outburst. “Uh,” Riffan said, sounding deeply embarrassed. “I’m joking, of course.”
A scattering of laughter, but not from Pasha. She clenched an armrest, pondering the terrible possibility that some aspect of Riffan’s joking explanation was true. What had been done in Tanjiri System was so far beyond their own science it might as well be magic.
“We are resolved to trespass among the ruins of gods,” she said, not caring if anyone heard. Then she lifted her chin and spoke again, this time at good volume, determined to push the conversation forward. “Can we discuss the other objects?�
�
This request silenced the gathering for two full seconds. Then everyone started talking at once.
<><><>
Aside from the occulted star and the now-double planet, the image showed a generous sprinkling of faint, widely scattered points of light that together defined a flattened ring like a halo encircling the star. Nearly all the points were outside the orbit of Tanjiri-2.
A few structures, shadowy but limned in light, could be seen among the points.
The structures were large. Immensely large. So large, they made Tanjiri-2 look small.
Pasha counted thirteen megastructures visible in the image, each with a unique shape and none with a neat design. They looked like wreckage, ruined fragments fused together in the kinetic chaos that had followed calamity. Some lay horizontal to the plane of the ecliptic, others towered above it, their silhouettes suggesting long, drawn-out conglomerations of curved panels, partial spheres, rods, stair-step beams, and broken discs. The glittering points of the halo sparkled around them.
One megastructure appeared to be crowned in a wisp of white mist. Pasha imagined atmosphere still bleeding out of a broken habitat . . . but centuries had passed since cataclysm. More likely, the gravity of the megastructure allowed it to hold on to a fog of fine dust or frozen molecules of air.
“Aren’t we still missing matter?” someone asked.
Another: “My thought too. Surely there is not sufficient matter in that halo to account for all the matter that must have been used in the cordon at its peak.”
Naresh said, “We’ll do the calculations, but I suspect you’re right.”
<><><>
Hours later, Pasha emerged from the night-dark pavilion into real night. She felt giddy with excitement. Lifting her face to an artificial sky bright with projected stars, she twirled like a child, laughing.
Tarnya laughed with her. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it?” she said. “To know it’s not all dust, that something is out there.”
“I’m a horrible person,” Pasha confessed in a stage whisper. “What we saw in there was the shattered tomb of millions, billions, maybe more . . . but it’s amazing all the same.”
“The ruins of gods,” Tarnya teased. “Who knows what we’ll find there?”
Pasha pulled up abruptly, her ardor cooling. “If we go there.”
Tarnya frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The last time I checked, our course was set for a close pass of Tanjiri System, like the close pass Urban made at Deception Well.”
Both queried the library, confirming this. The fleet was not on course to enter the system.
“I think we were only waiting for confirmation that something is there,” Tarnya said, waving at someone. She looked at Pasha in apology. “I need to speak to Bituin.”
“Go ahead. We’ll meet later.”
People were leaving the pavilion in small groups, chattering and debating with each other. Pasha looked for Urban, but did not see him. Maybe he had left early.
She checked the personnel map. It showed him at the cottage he shared with Clemantine. She arrived there to find the gel door open, the living room glowing with soft light. Urban was inside, half-reclined on the sofa, watching her with an unnerving fixed stare as she crossed the patio. This annoyed her. She wondered what game he was playing.
But when she reached the threshold, she saw his eyes weren’t tracking her. His face looked vacant, giving her the unsettling impression that although his avatar was present, he was somewhere else.
But even if that was so, surely some part of his mind, or a submind, monitored what passed around him?
She called to him from the threshold. “Hello, Urban? Can we talk?”
To her relief, his eyes shifted at the sound of her voice. He sat up. His gaze focused on her, and a slight, cynical, lopsided smile appeared on his face.
He said, “You want to talk about Tanjiri, don’t you? Come on in.”
She straightened her shoulders and stepped inside, striving to present a strong, confident front. “You’ve seen the new imagery. We have to go there. This is why we came.”
His smile widened. “Is that what the ship’s company wants? Is there consensus on that?”
He was teasing her, payback for her criticism of him that first day. She answered in a neutral voice. “I think we were all too excited to discuss it.”
“Well, you’ve got time.”
That was true! There was so much time left to endure before they got there.
“It’ll take even longer than you’re expecting,” he said. “We’ll have to dump velocity as we get close. Go in slowly.”
“Understood. And we’ll need to take the time to carefully map every object. But it’s worth it, isn’t it? We’ll never know the truth if we limit ourselves to a fly-by, standing off at a distance that keeps us safe.”
“We’re not safe,” he reminded her.
She shrugged, unwilling to play word games. “I think we should spend time in this system. It’s why we came.”
Chapter
24
Urban’s ghost streamed in from the returning outrider, Elepaio. Rejoining with his core self, he possessed the memories of both timelines. He had been present when Griffin was captured, the outriders rebuilt, the gee deck finished, the ship’s company resurrected, and a consensus reached to keep Tanjiri as their first destination. He had also been present at the Rock when the marooned entity spoke to him. Both pasts equally real and already integrated into the totality of his experiences.
Riffan’s ghost would follow him in, and then the rest of the data gathered during the fly-by.
He turned to Clemantine, who lay asleep beside him in the bed they shared in her cottage. It was ship’s night outside. Quiet but for a few crickets, and dark. If lights were on in the other cottages, they were hidden behind window screens. He triggered a slight glow in the walls, enough to see her shape. He kissed her cheek until she awoke.
“What is it?” she murmured.
He purred deep in his throat, and then confessed, “God, I’ve missed you.”
She pushed him away, far enough that she could sit up. “You’re back, aren’t you? Tell me what you saw.”
So he did, while the data streamed in—chemical analyses, spectral analyses, log files, video, and his own brief summary of his findings—all downloading into Dragon’s library.
Clemantine willed the lights to a brighter setting. She studied him, looking skeptical, worried. “I don’t like to think of your avatar gone like that, into the hands of some . . . monster.”
“I terminated.”
“You know that?”
“You know I would have.”
“But there’s no record of it. No data on how you were taken down—and that leaves us vulnerable. Without data on what happened, how do we improve our defenses for the next time?”
That was the problem he’d been wrestling with throughout the return journey—and not much to show for it. But he was saved from having to answer when a query reached his atrium. “Hold on,” he told her. “Vytet wants to talk. I’ll link you in.” Then to Vytet, “Go ahead.”
“I’ve read your summary,” Vytet said—a feminine voice tonight, though her tone was flat. A mask for anxiety? “I think we’ve got an immediate problem.”
“What kind of a problem?” Urban asked. “The data’s not corrupt?”
“No. The data is good, what I’ve seen of it, anyway. I haven’t had time to go over it in detail, but so far it all—”
“What’s the problem, Vytet?” Clemantine said, cutting her off.
An audible sigh. “The mission summary. It concerns me. The shipwrecks—at least the two human ships—Urban, you think those crews scuttled their ships to keep the entity from escaping.”
“Yes. That’s how it looked.”
“But you got away untouched?”
“Yes, because only the probe went into the system. Elepaio never got close. No data viruses got into the library.”
Clemantine looked at Urban, her fine eyebrows raised in question. “A glamour?” she repeated. “What does that mean?”
“Come to the library,” Vytet said. “I’ll show you.”
<><><>
Vytet had become a female version of the dark-haired man she’d been, her black eyes glittering as she turned to greet Urban and Clemantine. The Apparatchiks were with her in the library, all six of them. A rare gathering, signaling a critical issue.
“Here,” Vytet said, gesturing at a large frameless window. “Have a look.”
Like all the outriders, Elepaio was stealthed. As it returned to the fleet, its position had been unknown until the data came in. But as soon as Vytet received its position information, she’d turned Dragon’s telescopes on it.
The image she’d captured showed the expected faint infrared signature of Elepaio’s hull, but there was also an indistinct blur encircling the bow.
“It’s not surprising you didn’t notice it,” Vytet said. “The outrider’s hull cameras are designed to see distant objects. This . . . fog, this mist, I think it’s indicative of something caught in the field of Elepaio’s reef and energized by that interaction. The outrider is so small, you see, that the reef’s effect extends beyond its hull.”
“This is not a processing error?” Clemantine asked. “Or a flaw in the lens?”
“I hoped it was only that,” Vytet said. “Or degassing from the bio-mechanical tissue, caused by impact damage.”
“There was an impact,” Urban said. “There were two.”
“Yes. I saw that in the summary. I asked the Apparatchiks to evaluate the finding.”