Prime- The Summons

by Maeve Sleibhin

  “Would Fleet have any tactical advantage in holding Messim?” Xai asked.

  “Messim is under Prime authority,” the Tellorian replied.

  “I know. But can you find any reason why Fleet would want to control Messim?”

  “Redefine query.”

  “There’s a Weakness Point near Messim, right?” Xai asked after a moment’s thought.

  “Correct. The Weakness Point initially called Annabel Tellorian 32 was ceded to Messinian authority in 243.786 Prima Time.”

  Xai drummed her fingers on the desk before her. “Show me a three dimensional map of current political affiliations,” she said abruptly.

  “Specify size.”

  “One meter, square.”

  “Specify colors.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Xai said irritably.

  “Unable to comply without the appropriate specifications,” the Tellorian said stubbornly.

  Xai glared at the nearest Strip. “Red for Fleet,” she said, unable to keep a tone of sarcasm from creeping into her voice, “blue for Prime, green for Rydia, and… yellow for the Non-Aligned.”

  A three-dimensional map appeared before her. One quarter of claimed space was under Fleet Authority, close to half under Rydia, and the rest yellow, with one extended oval corridor of blue. Great swathes of empty space swirled around and through the colored areas.

  “Assume the space controlled by Starbase 42319 is under Fleet authority.”

  One end of the oval turned red.

  “Assume Messim is under Fleet authority.”

  The other end of the oval turned red.

  Xai sat and stared at the map before her. “Project estimates of distance, presuming Fleet surfing standards.”

  A pink haze projected out from the two newly red areas. In some areas, elongated fingers reached deep into non-aligned space. In others, there was no intrusion at all. Such were the effects of dimension surfing, which had forever changed man’s perception of space.

  “What advantage would those Weakness Points give Fleet?” Xai asked.

  “Fleet would have access to the following systems: Libera, Malluvia, Exola, New Caledonia, Nella Appal, Tween, and Dell of Rydian space, along with trading outposts Dwain, Six, Sig and Luus. From the Weakness Points at those stations—”

  “Never mind those. Would they have access to any non-aligned systems?”

  “Edoxia, Trumex Trime, Malla Five and Tora.”

  Xai drummed her fingers on the keyboard. “Is there anything special about those systems?”

  “Specify.”

  “Is there any sort of a military advantage to those systems?”

  “Specify,” the Tellorian repeated blandly.

  Xai trembled silently for a moment, on the verge of completely losing her temper. Then she was struck by a sudden thought. “Doesn’t Edoxia make the best Q-Matrices?”

  “Edoxian matrices are 20 percent less likely to fracture and 30 percent less likely to have growth irregularities,” the Tellorian replied in a self-contented tone.

  Xai’s fingers started to tap on the console again. “So,” she said slowly, “if they controlled Messim, they could jump to Edoxia.”

  “Correct. They could also jump to Libera, Malluvia—”

  “I know,” Xai said quickly, cutting off the AI. She stared at the map for a moment longer. “Deactivate the image,” she said finally.

  Xai sat back in her chair and examined the clouds above her, a nagging worry in the back of her mind, the persistent feeling of having missed something, something important. The feeling haunted her as the nights went by and she approached her first big trial, the dumping ground.

  Chapter Fifteen

  THE TELLORIAN woke Xai from a deep sleep with a wild, klaxon-like wail. “Approaching the Generally Accepted Dumping Ground,” the Tellorian cried in what Xai’s sleep-fogged mind could only identify as an extremely anxious tone of voice, “7,000 kilometers and closing.”

  “Turn that off!” Xai shouted.

  “Specify.”

  “That damned alarm!” Xai cried. The alarm stopped abruptly. Xai sat up and rubbed her now aching head. “Are you reading any active magnetic fields?”

  “Negative.”

  Xai let out a breath, relieved. This meant she wouldn’t have another field to manage, along with her own. “Ok,” she said, “drop into a lower current.”

  The Tellorian put the rudder hard to port and nosed down, slipping into a slower stream of the solar tides they had been riding for over a month. “6,000 kilometers and closing,” it announced.

  Xai’s mouth was dry. She pushed herself to the navigational seat and strapped herself in. “Bring up the manual controls,” she said. The Tellorian activated four keyboards of ten keys each on the desk before her. Each key gave Xai control of a magnetic strip in the ship’s hull. “Bring me in another 5 centimeters,” Xai said. Soundlessly, her chair slipped five centimeters closer to the keyboards.

  “5,000 kilometers and closing.”

  “Drop one more.”

  They nosed down once again into a weaker current.

  “Ok,” Xai said, “show it to me.”

  The Tellorian brought up a map of the debris field. “4,000 kilometers and closing. Current shifting away.”

  “Take us out,” Xai told the AI. They slipped out of the current with a slight lurch and began gliding through space, moving forward now purely on momentum.

  “3,000 kilometers and closing.”

  “Fold the rudder,” Xai said. The Tellorian retracted the rudder. They were slowing now, coasting through the mist.

  Flying through a debris field on magnets was dangerous. Each time the magnets were activated, not only was the ship pulled toward the object, but the object was pulled toward the ship. The ship changed directions—the debris did not. It continued until it hit something. This, moved as well, would go on until it hit something too, creating a highly unpredictable chain reaction. Tiny impulses given at the beginning of a journey could very well, by the end, create a wave hurtling through space, sweeping up everything in its path and, in this case, the person who had given that first, seemingly small push.

  “2,000 kilometers and closing.” Xai could see them now, dark hulls looming in the distance, shadowed by the murky darkness of the nebula.

  Xai began to wish she had taken the longer route.

  “Do you wish to activate manual controls?” the Tellorian prompted.

  “No yet,” Xai replied absently, staring at the great hull hanging before them. The body alone had to be more than a kilometer long.

  “1,000 kilometers.”

  “What kind of ship is that?” Xai asked.

  “Specify.”

  Xai sighed and glanced up to see the number of the Malloxian square. “The one in square 412.”

  “The ship in question is a Fleet Imperiosus Battleship.”

  Xai stared up at the hulk of the huge ship, the eight colossal masts reaching out into the shadows.

  “Now within the official limits of the Generally Accepted Dumping Ground,” the Tellorian announced.

  Xai chewed nervously at her lower lip. “De-activate the automatic controls.”

  “Ship is now on manual,” the Tellorian confirmed.

  They coasted in the space between two arms of the battleship.

  Xai concentrated on the map projected before her. If she looked out at the ships themselves she got lost in their enormity, in the nooks and damaged crannies of those old ghosts, hiding the remnants of thousands of finished lives. Looking at the map she could pretend she was only playing the simulation.

  It seemed obvious. She just had to stay on the central towing lane until she reached the end. Then she would be safe, and could go on to the Weakness Point.

  She tapped gently on the keys representing the magnets on the lower left hand side of the ship. The back of the Tellorian moved gently, and they swung slowly into the towing lane—a long road stretching into the murky distance, lit with safety f
lares. Off to her left was the glow of a distant nebular sun. Its diffused light shone off the old hulls, throwing some into stark relief.

  It was a strange and powerful sight—hundreds of ancient ships stationed side by side along a strip of empty space. Some were battle scarred; others missed great sections of their hulls. One appeared to have had its nose blasted off. Xai could only stare, amazed, as she floated slowly past a conference room and officers’ quarters, all painted in the wild, swirling tones of Andraxian decor. Others seemed untouched—hulls gleaming in the reflected lights they hung like mute, mysterious shadows. It was tremendously poignant, in an odd way, and decidedly eerie.

  Xai was just beginning to think they might make it when something shot across her visual field.

  “What the hell was that?” she said, alarmed. The dead ships hung silently around her, keeping their secrets.

  “Specify.”

  “The thing that just went past us.”

  “A piece of debris 50 centimeters by 10,” the Tellorian said calmly.

  “Debris?” Xai cried. Debris that large could breach the hull. Floating debris of that magnitude could mean the end of her trip, if not her life. “Then why wasn’t it on my map?”

  “Debris must be at least a meter long to be visible on the schematics.”

  Xai pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead and tried to maintain a calm and collected frame of mind.

  “Is any more of this debris going to be floating around?” she asked tartly.

  “Debris of such magnitude is considered an integral part of a Generally Accepted Dumping Ground.”

  “Great,” Xai said sourly.

  She looked up and down the debris field, but it seemed as dead and as still as it had just minutes before.

  Abruptly something else shot past above them. “There’s another one!” Xai cried.

  Suddenly it seemed as if all sorts of small projectiles were moving in space. Objects less than a meter long began shooting through the path before her, obscuring the lights of the flares and the distant sun. For a moment Xai could only stare, aghast. Then she regained her voice. “What the hell is going on?” she cried.

  “Projectiles are passing through the projected path,” the Tellorian noted.

  “I can see that!”

  “Probability of impact 49 percent and climbing,” the Tellorian said gleefully.

  “What’s causing it?” Xai shouted. Some larger pieces of debris in the vicinity began to move slowly into the avenue. Then something collided with one of the flares lining the path, and there was a great burst of light.

  “A towing magnet has been activated from a position perpendicular to our own on the outskirts of the field.”

  “Oh, no,” Xai whispered, horrified. She’d spent much of the past eighteen years watching space vids, and if there was one thing space vids taught, it was that there was only one culture known to humankind who used towing magnets on debris fields.

  “Probability that the tower is a Malloxian Scavenger Unit is 92.6 percent,” the Tellorian said neutrally, confirming Xai’s worst fears. Malloxian scavengers went from debris field to debris field, collecting everything they could find of value, towing it to the nearest Rydian base, and selling it to the highest bidder. Human beings had value. Especially to Rydian traders with Fleet connections.

  “The magnification is increasing,” the Tellorian noted. Xai watched, dismayed, as the nose of her ship began to turn.

  There was an unexpected thumping noise, the whole ship shuddered, and Xai felt as if she had suddenly been hit very hard on the hands and face. All the alarms blared into life.

  “Hull integrity breach,” the Tellorian stated. “Suit force fields have been activated.”

  “Turn those off!” Xai shouted.

  “Specify.”

  “The alarms!” Xai cried. She’d just seen a huge hole in the side of what looked like an old T’lasian cargo freighter. If she could get the Tellorian inside it, she might be able hide from the moving debris and save the ship from further damage.

  All the alarms stopped as suddenly as they’d begun. Gritting her teeth determinedly Xai activated all the directional magnets on the side of Tellorian closest to the cargo freighter. Slowly, impossibly slowly, they coasted toward the opening.

  “Magnification increasing,” the Tellorian noted as larger pieces of debris began to slip past her.

  Something slammed into the back of the Tellorian. Xai’s head snapped forward. Annabel careened through the gap in the freighter’s hull and smashed violently into its back wall. The ship was engulfed in darkness

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE COMPLETE OBSCURITY was thick and oppressive, and for one, frightening moment Xai thought she couldn’t breathe. She glanced down at her forearms, the sight of the luminescent panels of her suit reassuring her. The numbers on her left forearm read 28:22. She had less than thirty minutes before the suit exhausted its capabilities. It was a strangely empty thought, analytic when she had expected it to be anxious. A line from T’ao Xiang’s First Treatise floated across her consciousness. “The heart of each man is a foreign thing, of strangeness and beauty.”

  The Tellorian was entirely silent, no lights, no voice. She should have been making all sorts of fretful comments. That there was no reaction whatsoever meant one of two things—either she was dead, or she was damaged to the point that she had gone into a lower functioning mode.

  Xai looked down at her forearm and punched the light hieroglyph. Two small beams shot out from her epaulets, illuminating the dark keyboards before her. She undid the clasps of the seatbelts and floated up into space.

  If she was going to have any hope of surviving she had to get into the prolonged exposure suit—a thousand and one vids told her this. The PES was stored in the suits drawer. She pushed off toward it, pulling herself around the exercise machine.

  When she opened the drawer the prolonged exposure suit unfolded like a flower, the outline shining in the dim light, the clear helmet slipping out on a long cord, gleaming. Xai unzipped the front and struggled through the null gravity to get inside. Sweat broke out on her forehead. The regular suit gave a low, resentful beep. The oxygen numbers dropped further.

  Finally she maneuvered her body into the suit. She was far too small for it, but there was no time to worry about that. “The true leader makes what he is given into what he would wish to have.” X’eo Wu, Teksa Wu’s great grandfather. Why did phrases spoken by men dead for hundreds of years choose this moment to rise up into her consciousness? Especially when she hadn’t been able to remember any of them on the last test? But this was definitely not the time to wonder about it. She reeled the helmet in and locked it into place. She pulled in a glove and latched it. The second was harder, and she fumbled to get her fingers into the oversized glove and snap it into place. At least she couldn’t see the oxygen dial slipping slowly lower, hidden as it was behind the rubbery black fabric of the PES.

  Finally she was entirely enclosed. “Activate prolonged exposure suit,” she said.

  Nothing happened. Xai’s skin prickled and she broke out into a more enthusiastic sweat. She was running out of air. “Despair is the home of hope.” Teksa Wu again, the favorite of aunt Zazei. Her suit gave another resentful beep.

  Xai brought her hands up to where she could see them over the metallic locking rim of the PES. There were strips of hieroglyphs on each arm, just like on the regular suit. She pressed the ‘On’ button.

  “Prolonged Exposure Suit activated,” a neutral male voice said in her ear. A blast of air hit her in the face. “Initiating Phase One: detaching interior skin.”

  There was a strange whirring sound. Then something struck her entire body, except her head.

  “Interior skin molding process initiated,” the voice said.

  Xai felt her regular suit being squeezed, as the interior skin of the PES interfaced with the regular suit, as well as attaching to her hands.

  “Phase One completed. Initiating
Phase Two: retracting exterior skin.”

  The whirring noise increased, as the exterior skin was brought into the regulation one-millimeter distance from the interior skin. Finally it stopped.

  “Phase Two completed. Prolonged exposure suit is now fully functional. Estimated time until detox becomes necessary: 7 days; 11 hours, 59 minutes.” PES suits could function indefinitely if they could detox, exchanging used nutrients for new ones, clearing the filters. There was a story of a man who had lived for four years in a debris field by going from ship to ship, detoxing. As far as Xai could recall, he’d also gone completely mad. But she wasn’t going to think about that.

  Xai wiggled her fingers experimentally. Now that the PES was fully retracted, it fit rather well. Her head was still a bit low in the helmet, and her feet swam in the boots, but at least she could see. The gloves were surprisingly effective.

  “Activate spotlight,” Xai said. A light beam shot out from the side of her helmet, much stronger than the epaulet lights on the other suit. She trained it on the cabinets before her, reading the contents printed on their covers. Finally she found what she was looking for, the diagnostics kit. With it she would be able to determine the status of the Tellorian. For a moment she could only stare at it, filled with apprehension. “All victories begin with truth,” Tal’ei Xein had once said. She was related to him somehow, but no one had ever been willing to tell her exactly in what manner. With something like a sigh she pulled the diagnostics kit out of the drawer.

  She went first to the Q-Culture. If it was irreparably damaged, her hopes for escape were finished and she might as well take the suicide injection provided by the PES. She undid the hatch in the middle of the floor and pulled it open. A cloud of gas shot out, sending her flying. She slammed into the exercise machine and spun crazily until she hit the back wall. Fear filled her, overwhelming the pain she felt in her arm and back. “Skin breach?” she snapped.