Pandora's Star

by Peter F. Hamilton

‘From what I have witnessed on my travels, that attitude seems to be in the majority.’

  ‘Yeah, but there are varying degrees. I’d like to think we’re reasonably restrained, but by your standards we’re probably not.’

  ‘That makes neither of us right, nor wrong.’

  ‘I hope so. After all, we all have to share the same galaxy.’

  ‘I believe that intelligence and rationality will always be primary no matter what shape sentient creatures take. To not think that would be to doubt the value of life itself.’

  Ozzie gave the big alien a quick thumbs up. They were approaching another steep incline that was half rock. Tochee could scale such obstacles with the greatest of ease, while he and Orion had to scramble up, sweating with the effort. Ozzie glanced towards the sea on his left. They’d been walking along the top of the coastal cliff for two days. It varied considerably in height, but it was a good twenty metres high here, and there didn’t seem to be a beach at the bottom. Not that there was an easy path down in any case.

  ‘Up we go, then,’ he told Orion. The boy pulled a face, and re-tied the band of faded blue cloth that was holding his long hair back away from his eyes. They both started to clamber up, jamming feet into narrow crevices, hands gripping precariously at strong tufts of grass so they didn’t lose their balance when the weight of the rucksacks pulled at them. Tochee flowed up the incline, its ridges of locomotion flesh clasping at the rock and vegetation as it went. Ozzie hadn’t asked, but he figured the big alien could probably slide straight up a sheer cliff.

  Once they were on top, they began walking along the edge of the cliff. The ground was sloping down again now. He knew they were on an island. The small central hill with its crown of jungle had been in sight on his right for the whole two days of their trek. His array’s inertial guidance unit was plotting their wide circular course around it. He hadn’t told Orion yet, but in another mile and a half they’d be back where they started.

  ‘Is that an island out there?’ Orion asked.

  Right on the horizon there was a small dark smudge. When Ozzie zoomed in, it resolved into a solid little peak rising out of the sea, much like the one they were on. ‘Yep, that makes five. This is some kind of archipelago.’

  ‘We haven’t seen any ships,’ Orion said.

  ‘Give it time, it’s only been two days.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’ There hadn’t been any night since they arrived on this world. In fact, the bright sun’s position hadn’t moved at all. The planet was tide-locked, with one face permanently pointing towards the sun. Ozzie wasn’t sure how the climate could function normally with such a set-up. But then the gas halo was hardly a natural phenomenon. Between them, he and Tochee had used every sensor they had to scan the multitude of twinkling specks that were orbiting through the gas with this planet. The other specks weren’t planets, that was for certain, although there was very little else they could discover about them. They weren’t emitting any radio or microwave pulses, at least not strong enough to be detectable at any distance. That just left Johansson’s brief description to fall back on. Giant lengths of some coral variant that was home to vegetation. He wondered if the Silfen used them as cities, or nests, or if they even bothered with them at all. Maybe they were just there to keep the gas in the halo fresh and breathable, as forests and oceans were to planets.

  As for their measurements of the halo itself, the best they could come up with was that it had a circular cross-section roughly two million kilometres in diameter that orbited a hundred and fifty million kilometres from the star. What contained the gas was unknown, but had to be some kind of force field. The idea of building a transparent tube this big was mind-boggling, and introduced a whole range of engineering and maintenance problems. Exactly where the power came from to generate a force field on such a scale was also unknown, although Ozzie was pretty sure the builders must have tapped the star’s power. Frankly, there was little else which could provide the kind of energy level required. Why anyone would create such an artefact in the first place was beyond him. It lacked the practicality of a Dyson sphere or a Niven ring. But then, if you had the ability to do this, you probably didn’t actually need to. And if it was the Silfen home system, he strongly suspected the answer to such a question would be: why not. He didn’t really care, he was just happy someone had done it – and he’d seen it.

  ‘Ozzie, Tochee, look!’ Orion was racing on ahead of them through the grass. There was no cliff here, the ground had dipped until it was almost level with the sea. A big sandy beach curved away ahead of them. The boy ran onto the sand. A dead fern frond was standing on top of a low dune at the back of the beach like a brown flag. Ozzie had stuck it in there when they started their exploratory walk.

  The boy’s delight crumpled as he pulled the frond out of the sand. ‘This is an island.’

  ‘Fraid so, man,’ Ozzie said.

  ‘But . . .’ Orion turned to look at the small central mountain. ‘How do we get off?’

  ‘I can swim to another island,’ Tochee said. ‘If you are to come with me, we must build a boat.’

  Orion gave the sea a mistrustful look. ‘Can’t we call someone for help?’

  ‘Nobody’s listening,’ Ozzie said, holding up his hand-held array. The unit had been transmitting standard first contact signals since it started functioning again, along with a human SOS. So far, the entire electromagnetic spectrum had remained silent.

  ‘If this is where the Silfen live, where are they?’ the boy demanded.

  ‘On the mainland, somewhere, I guess,’ Ozzie said. He stared out to sea. Three islands were visible to his retinal inserts on full zoom, though he wasn’t sure of their distance. If they were the same size as this one, they’d be nearly fifty miles away. Which, given he was now only a couple of yards above sea level, should have put them far over the horizon on any Earth-sized planet. He wondered if this one was the same size as Silvergalde.

  ‘Where’s that?’ Orion asked grouchily.

  ‘I don’t know. In that cloudbank we saw from the other side of the island, maybe.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Ozzie snapped. ‘I don’t get this place at all, okay.’

  ‘Sorry, Ozzie,’ Orion said meekly. ‘I just thought . . . you normally know stuff, that’s all.’

  ‘Yeah, well this time I don’t, so we’ll have to find it out together.’ He told his e-butler to call up boat-building files from his array’s memory.

  *

  Even in midsummer, the waters of the Trine’ba were cold. Filled with snow melt every spring, and deep enough to keep sunlight out of its lower levels, it guarded its low temperature jealously. Mark wore a warmsuit as he drifted among the fabulous dendrites, fans, and arches of coral that sprouted from the main reef. So far, marine biologists had identified three hundred and seventy-two species of coral, and added more every year. They ranged from the dominant dragonback, with its long amethyst and amber mounds, down to beige corknuts the size of pebbles. Unicorn horn formations poked upwards from the patches of bright tangerine ditchcoral, seriously sharp at the point. He was pleased to see Barry was showing them due respect. So many people wanted to see if they were as sharp as they looked. Warmsuit fabric gave no protection for fingers and palms. Every year Randtown General Hospital treated dozens of tourist impalements.

  Barry saw him watching, and gave the circular okay signal with his right hand. Mark waved back. Cobalt ring snakes thrummed inquisitively in their niches as they swam lazily overhead. Rugpikes crawled over the reef, hundreds of tiny stalk eyes swivelling as if they were a strip of soft green wheat waving in a gentle breeze. Fish were clotting the water around them like a gritty kaleidoscope cloud – thousands of brilliantly coloured starburst particles whose spines and spindles pulsed rapidly, propelling them along in jerky zigzags. They came in sizes from brassy afriwebs half the length of his finger up to lumbering great brown and gold maundyfish, bigger than
humans and moving with drunken sluggishness around the lower reefs. A shoal of eerie milk-white sloopbacks wriggled right in front of Mark’s goggles, and he made a slow catching motion with his hands. The palm-length creatures bent their spines back to form a streamlined teardrop and jetted away.

  Barry was doing slow barrel rolls, his flippers kicking in careful rhythm. Both hands were clenched around flakes of dried native insects, which he was slowly rubbing apart. Fish followed him, feeding on the tiny flecks. They formed twin spirals in his wake, like intersecting corkscrews. As they ate, their unique digestive tract bacteria began to glow, illuminating them from within. Looking down on them against the murky bottom was to see an iridescent comet tail spinning in slow motion across the darkness.

  With the food almost gone, Barry slapped his hands together, creating an expanding sphere of broken flakes. The Trine’ba fish swarmed in, making a galaxy of opalescent stars around him.

  Mark smiled proudly inside his gill mask. The boy was everything he could have wanted in a son: happy, cheeky, confident. He’d grown beautifully in this environment. It was becoming hard to remember Augusta now. Neither of the kids ever talked about it these days, even Liz called her friends back there less and less, and he hadn’t spoken to his father in months.

  He kicked his legs, closing in on his son as the shroud of luminous fish darkened and swam away in search of more food. The timer in his virtual vision said they’d been exploring the reef underwater for forty minutes now. He pointed to the surface. Barry responded with a reluctant okay hand sign.

  They came up into warm bright sunlight that had them blinking tears against it as they searched round for the boat. The catamaran was a hundred and fifty metres away. Liz was standing on the prow, waving at them. Mark took the gill mouthpiece out. ‘Got a long swim over there. Better inflate your jacket.’

  ‘I’m all right, Dad.’

  ‘I’m not. Let a little air in, huh, make your mom happy.’

  ‘Okay, I guess.’

  Mark pressed the pump valve on his shoulder, and felt the warmsuit jacket stiffen as the fabric inhaled, puffing up around him. They rolled onto their backs, and began a steady kick.

  Sandy was still snorkelling round the yacht, along with Elle, one of the Dunbavand kids. Lydia and her two lads, Will and Ed, were already back on the catamaran, washing their diving gear. David and Liz were starting to prepare lunch on the middeck.

  Panda barked delightedly as Barry swam up to the small dive platform at the back of the yacht.

  ‘Stay,’ Liz called. The dog looked like she was about to jump in and swim again.

  Barry clambered onto the dive platform and took his flippers off. ‘Did you miss me?’ he asked Panda. ‘Did you?’

  The dog was still barking excitedly, her tail wagging furiously. Barry made a fuss of her when he climbed up the small chrome ladder to the main deck. He started to reach for one of the boiled eggs from the salad Liz was setting out. ‘Clean up and dry out first,’ his mother warned him.

  Mark helped Sandy onto the dive platform. She lifted her mask off, and smiled happily at her father. ‘I saw a grog down there, Daddy. It was hugely big.’ Her arms stretched out wide to show just how big.

  ‘That’s lovely darling,’ he said as he pulled his own flippers off. ‘Did you put your sunscreen on before you went in the water?’

  ‘Uh huh.’ She nodded vigorously.

  Even though Sandy’s skin was a lot darker than his, he was suspicious about the back of her neck and arms; they looked slightly sunburnt to him. ‘Well let’s put some aftersun salve on shall we?’

  Happy with the attention, she agreed readily.

  ‘You shouldn’t have taken him out for so long,’ Liz chided when he sat down and began applying the salve to Sandy’s back. ‘I was getting worried. And look how far away from the boat you got.’

  ‘But, Mom, it was so clear down there today,’ Barry protested. ‘You could see for miles. It’s never been so good before.’

  Mark gave his wife a helpless look. How could you prevent a kid having that much fun? She gave the pair of them an exasperated stare, and carried on with the salad.

  The catamaran belonged to David and Lydia, who used it during the summer months to explore the little coves and inlets along Trine’ba’s shoreline. In wintertime it was hauled up the Randtown yacht club’s slipway, so at the weekends David could spend hours in the boatshed painting the hull and repairing the rigging ready for the next season. Mark loved the yacht, and had already begun to think seriously about getting one himself. Not that they could afford one yet. It was a bit like having a dog and a 4x4, all part of Randtown.

  When everyone was finally washed and dry and sitting down to lunch, the catamaran’s electromuscle rigging unfurled its sails and set off for one of the tiny conical atolls that poked up from the very deepest part of the lake. They’d promised the kids they could visit one in the afternoon to see if the balloon flowers were inflating yet. It was almost time for the annual event, which Randtown celebrated with parades and a huge lakeside barbecue in the evening.

  ‘The vineyard association said they haven’t noticed any decline on orders,’ David said when the kids had all gone to sit on the stern to eat their lillinberries and ice cream. ‘I was at the meeting last night. You should have come, Mark.’

  ‘Not sure I’d be welcome.’

  ‘Don’t be so paranoid,’ Lydia told him. ‘You didn’t even get your fifteen minutes of fame; you were just a one-minute wonder that evening. All the media cares about right now is the Burnelli murder.’

  ‘That Baron woman is still using the phrase,’ Mark said. ‘According to her show all of Randtown is anti-human.’ Everyone in the district was worried about the effect Baron’s propaganda would have on their small economy. So far it hadn’t been bad. After a five-day standoff, the navy trucks had eventually retreated back down the highway, and the tourist buses had returned. Of course, the summer bookings had been made months before; it was too late for anyone to cancel. The true test would be next season’s bookings. A surprising number of visitors had congratulated the residents on making their stand – Mark’s interview was politely never mentioned. In the meantime, people were watching to see what would happen to their small export trade of wines and organic food.

  ‘Nobody on Elan is going to organize a boycott, for heaven’s sake,’ Liz said. ‘In any event, half of the wine we make is sold right here in the district; and the kind of people who buy proper organic produce support what we did any-way.’

  Mark nodded glumly, and poured himself some more Chapples wine. ‘I might have got away with it, then.’

  David leaned over, and touched his glass to Mark’s. ‘I’ll drink to that. Come on, the future’s looking good. Liz has almost cracked the Kinavine’s rhizome sequence; once we have that fixing its own nitrogen we can sell it for cultivation right across the valley. People will be ripping up their old vines and replanting. There won’t be a vineyard on Ryceel that can compete against that wine when it crops.’

  ‘It’s going to take a little while yet,’ Liz said.

  Mark put his arm around her. ‘You’ll do it,’ he said softly.

  She grinned back at him.

  ‘What in God’s name are those?’ Lydia asked. She was shielding her eyes with one hand, pointing back towards Randtown with the other.

  Blackwater Crag dominated the skyline behind the town, then there was a short break in the mountains to the west of it where the highway valley led back into the Dau’sings. After that the rugged peaks rose again to stand guard over Trine’ba’s shore. One of the tallest peaks on the western side was Goi’al, the southernmost of a cluster collectively called the Regents, where the district’s snow bike sports and racing were based. Only now, in midsummer when the ice and snow finally lifted from the sheltered high ground, did the little machines pack up for a few months.

  Black specks were circling slowly to the side of Goi’al. To be visible from this distance they must hav
e been huge.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ David muttered. He went straight to the cabin, and brought back a pair of binoculars from the locker. Electromuscle pulleys began to furl the sails, reducing speed to make the catamaran more stable. ‘Helicopters,’ he said. ‘Bug-ger, but they’re big brutes. I’ve never seen anything like them before, they’ve got double rotors. Must be some kind of heavy cargo lifter. I make that at least fifteen of them up there, could be more.’

  He offered the binoculars round to the others. Liz took them. Mark didn’t bother, he slumped down into the mid-deck’s semicircular couch. ‘It’s the detector station,’ he said in dismay. ‘After everything we did, everything we said, they brought it in anyway. The bastards.’

  Liz handed the binoculars to Lydia. ‘You knew it was going to happen in the end, Mark. Something that big isn’t stopped by a bunch of people standing in the middle of the road.’

  ‘I thought we lived in a democracy.’

  ‘We do. We exercised our democratic right to protest, and they ignored us. Ultimately, the navy is a government department, what did you expect from them?’

  ‘I don’t know. Would a little sensitivity be too much to ask?’

  She went over and sat beside him. ‘I’m really sorry, baby. I don’t want them here any more than you do. But we’re going to have to knuckle down and live with it for the duration. These are strange times, we have to make allowances for that. Once this whole Prime thing is over, and the warmongers and profiteers have finished frightening the life out of everyone, then the station will be gone. We’ll make damn sure they take all their crap with them, as well, I promise that.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he sighed, conscious how he must be coming over as a petulant brat to the Dunbavands. ‘Yeah, I guess so. But I don’t have to like it.’

  ‘Nobody’s asking you to.’

  He drained the last of the Chapples wine from the glass, and looked back across the cool calm waters of Trine’ba. The helicopters had already begun to land on the other side of Goi’al.

  *