by J. N. Chaney
“It can, can it? And just how does it manage to do that?”
“It is a hybrid sort of tech,” Viktor said. “It somehow integrates our real space, and a parallel anti-space, into a single, self-contained universe, for lack of a better word. Just like the deuterium and anti-deuterium we use to power our translation drives mutually annihilate each other, so do the space and anti-space that are bridged by this device. The amount of power generated is colossal, at least equal to the instantaneous output of a blue giant star.”
Dash looked at the Lens, then back to Viktor. “Right. And what does it do with all that energy?” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, wait, you told me already. It blows up stars.”
Viktor frowned at Dash’s flippant tone. “It does. It opens a wormhole into the target star and causes its core to begin fusing light elements into iron.”
“And iron,” Leira cut in, “is the end of the line for a star. Iron fusion uses more energy than it produces. It causes negative fusion, as it were. Without the outward pressure from positive fusion to balance its own gravitation, the star collapses.”
“Then. . . boom,” Viktor said, mimicking an explosion with the hand not holding the Lens. “Depending on the size of the star, what’s left is a white dwarf or a neutron star. We don’t think it can affect stars large enough to collapse into black holes, but we’re not even sure of that.”
“I know how stars work,” Dash snapped, then glared at the Lens. “And I know you can’t blow them up with…something you can hold in your hand. I mean, come on, you can’t really believe this.”
“It’s Unseen tech,” Leira said again. “So, yeah, it’s crazy by definition—from our perspective. But for the Unseen, this might have been the sort of thing everyone carried around in their pocket.”
Dash shook his head again. But it lacked some of his earlier conviction. Unseen tech was almost utterly inscrutable, so Leira’s and Viktor’s story was plausible. Unseen tech was also extraordinarily rare; that, together with it often being immensely powerful, made it even more immensely valuable. If this Lens could actually do what they said it could, it really might be worth as much as they claimed. More, even.
“Okay, fine. Let’s say for a minute I believe you, and that you aren’t deluded, and actually know what you’re talking about. Where did it come from? How did you get your hands on it?”
“It came from the Globe of Suns.”
Dash narrowed his eyes, thinking. The Globe of Suns was a stellar cluster, located on the far side of the Shadow Nebula, a colossal cloud of dust and gas that dimmed and obscured everything beyond it. Dash had never been to within more than a few light-years of the Shadow Nebula because, as a courier looking to do work to keep body and ship together, he’d never had any reason to. There was nothing out that way. The only other thing he recalled about the Shadow Nebula was that it was strange for its type of phenomenon, studies of it seeming to suggest it was formed by the explosion of not just one, but several stars, all over a short span of time.
Dash looked at the Lens. It glittered back at him, enigmatic crystalline. “Okay, so how did you get it? And this Clan Shirna, who are they? Did you steal it from them?”
Leira opened her mouth, but Viktor held up a hand. “This is as much as we tell you now, Dash. Leira was right, there are some things you don’t need to know. What we have told you should be enough to convince you that we really are carrying something truly valuable and important.”
“Hopefully,” Leira said, draining the last of her coffee, making a soft yuck sound as she did, “it will likewise be enough to convince you to take us back to…somewhere, anywhere, where we can get ahold of some sort of ship.”
Dash considered the two of them, and the supposed Lens. “I’m going to take us out of Fade, fully into unSpace, and head for Penumbra. That’s about as far as the fuel you gave me will take us. Don’t know if you’ll find a ship there, but you can probably get passage to somewhere you can. That is, assuming you’ve got more to bargain with than”—he pointed at the Lens— “well, that.”
“We have some credits,” Viktor said.
“You mean I’ve got some credits,” Dash countered. “Remember, you still owe me.”
“And you’ll get paid,” Leira assured him. “Just get us to Penumbra.”
Dash took a last look at the Lens then shook his head. “You really believe that thing can—wow, can’t believe I’m saying this. You really believe that that thing there, that you’re holding in your hand, in my galley, can actually blow up a star?”
Leira said, “Yes, I do.”
Viktor nodded. “So do I.”
He studied their faces. Dash considered himself a pretty good judge of character; moreover, an accomplished liar, he always prided himself on being able to see through most lies.
These two weren’t lying. They really did believe what they were claiming.
As Dash extricated himself from the galley and headed for the cockpit to get them underway to Penumbra, he chewed on how remarkable that would be. And by remarkable, he meant utterly insane.
Still, the Shadow Nebula was the remnants of a bunch of stars that should not have all exploded at once, but apparently did. That didn’t mean this Lens was responsible for it, of course.
But it also didn’t mean it wasn’t.
As he clambered into the Slipwing’s cockpit and turned his attention to the nav, it struck him that all he really knew was that Leira and Viktor believed what they were saying.
Whether they were right or not was one question. He called up the nav data for Penumbra, but paused and looked out at the Fade-distorted ghost of real space. Whether or not they were totally deluded, well, that was another, entirely separate question, wasn’t it?
4
With a flare of Cherenkov radiation from particle disruption, the Slipwing translated out of unSpace and back into the real version.
Dash instinctively watched the scanner. Penumbra hung in the black, a cloud-mottled, bluish sphere, the reflected light from its star washing out all but the brightest stars. It made the universe look a lot emptier. But Dash wasn’t concerned about the planet. His attention was fixed on the traffic going to and coming from the planet. There wasn’t much, because Penumbra was a frontier world—and a bit of a craphole at that. But any of the dozen or so ships transiting toward and away from the planet could be trouble—magistrates on the prowl for law-breakers (and Dash still had a warrant on him, one he hadn’t yet been able to bribe away), someone he owed money, even a desperate courier turning to piracy as a way to make some quick credits. But none of this traffic fit any of those profiles. They were either lumbering freighters bringing to Penumbra the stuff they couldn’t grow or make for themselves, or smaller ships streaking about on business of their own.
Dash relaxed a notch or two. Those first few moments following translation were always nerve-wracking, because you didn’t become a successful courier without making a few enemies or bending the occasional law. And this time, he couldn’t translate back away, or even get much use from the Fade, because the fuel Viktor had jury-rigged into the translation drive was all but expended.
“How long until planetfall?”
Dash turned and found Leira leaning into the cockpit. “About two hours shipboard,” he said. Leira nodded, but made no immediate move to withdraw. Dash gestured at the almost-never-used copilot’s seat. “Autodoc said you’re supposed to take it easy. That was a pretty nasty concussion.”
“You should feel it from this side,” she said, sliding into the seat. Dash noted she did it with the natural, fluid grace of someone used to cramped cockpits. He’d originally thought Viktor was the pilot, engineer, and the rest of the crew all rolled into one, and Leira was his passenger, someone with a background in Unseen and other ancient tech. But, watching her while they’d translated to Penumbra, and now—the way she readily maneuvered herself around the nav, past the scanner and engineering station and into the seat made it clear she was more.
&nbs
p; “You’re a courier, aren’t you?” he said.
Leira nodded, then winced at the movement. “Note to self, don’t move the damned head too fast. Anyway, yes, a courier, like you.”
“So that Raven-class was your ship?”
“Ours. Viktor and I have been together—well, a long time now.”
“Seems like a hell of an engineer.”
“If it’s broken, Viktor can fix it. If it’s not broken, he can make it work better.”
“So, you two are partners.”
She nodded again, gingerly this time. “We are. Works way better than going it alone.” She gave Dash a level gaze, meeting his eyes without fear.
To which he smiled. “Yeah, well, I’m a loner. Always have been. Don’t get close to people, because that just makes life complicated. The only exceptions are my employers.”
“You’ll eventually run out of people.”
“It’s a big galaxy.”
They sat in silence for a while, surrounded by the pervasive hum, whine, and the rumble of the Slipwing’s workings. Finally, Leira said, “You really don’t believe what we told you about the Lens, do you?”
“You have to admit, it’s pretty...” Dash trailed off, not wanting to offend her.
“Insane?”
“Insane works, yeah.” He made a minute adjustment to their course, then shrugged. “You genuinely believe it, though, and that makes it hard to just write it off.”
“You don’t suspect we’re grifters, then?”
“Is that what you’d suspect if you were me?” asked Dash.
She chuckled. “Absolutely.”
“Well,” Dash said, “if you are, you’re pretty dedicated to your scams. You should be kinda broken up about losing your ship. But you aren’t. You seem a lot more relieved that you were able to get off it with your Lens thing. That tells me how important you believe this Lens to be.”
“Maybe we stole that ship and just didn’t care about losing it.”
“Are you trying to convince me you’re con artists? If so, it’s a lousy way to con someone.”
“No. I’m just trying to put myself in your place.”
“Why?”
“Because I suspect that we’re going to get to Penumbra and find no ships willing, or able, or even suitable for our use, except this one,” Leira said.
“If you plan to stick around, we’ll need a new contract.”
“Spoken like a true courier. And that’s assuming, of course, you don’t mind having people around to risk getting too close to them.”
Dash glanced sideways at Leira. Good couriers could play people—play them against one another, or even against themselves. He suspected Leira might be doing that now, hinting at things she thought might influence Dash—pleasurable things.
And she was right. They would influence him. Absolutely they would.
A burst of radio chatter interrupted them. It was Penumbrian traffic control.
Dash glanced at Leira, who nodded. “I’ll get out of your way,” she said. “Talk to you once we’re planetside.”
Dash nodded and turned to the comms, ready to start inputting their insertion trajectory to the planet called Penumbra.
Spice, reclamation projects, and brothels. Those who knew Penumbra said these were the three fundamentals of the planet’s economy.
And not necessarily in that order.
Dash left the Slipwing’s assigned landing bay, a series of blast shields and exhaust deflectors intended to protect nearby ships from damage as others took off and landed. Leira and Viktor followed him. Leira insisted her head was clear and shrugged off Viktor’s efforts to help her along, an ongoing chatter between the two of them that brought an amused smile to Dash’s face. It was like listening to some old, married couple, and that, right there, was the problem with having a partner. He liked going solo; if he felt like walking fast, or slow, or running, or any number of other things, he could do it without having to explain or account for it to someone else.
Viktor gave Leira a last scowl, muttered something about her being too damned stubborn for her own good, then asked, “Where are you going first, Dash?”
“Fuel. We’ve got enough to go absolutely nowhere. There’s a place…don’t know if you know it, it’s called Eternal Grind. The owner’s a friend of mine. She always gives me a good price on stuff.”
They crossed a sprawling, empty plaza called the crash zone, because that’s exactly what it was, a broad expanse of nothing separating the Penumbra space port from the nearby town, intended to buffer the latter from mishaps at the former. It was psychological protection at best, of course. Not only could a ship crash on top of the town as easily as anywhere else, but a containment failure in a fusion generator or, much, much worse, an anti-deuterium cell, would vaporize everything within many kilometers anyway. Dash wasn’t sure how much the locals even dwelt on it. He sure didn’t, and he flew what amounted to a hundred-megaton bomb.
Through the crash zone, they pushed into the labyrinth of twisting streets, crooked alleys, drab buildings, and throngs of lifeforms that was Penumbra City. It was midday, with the reddish sun hanging at the zenith, the sky pink around it fading toward purples near the horizon. It cast everything in a rusty light that rendered Penumbra City into dreary sepia tones, the shadows blurred into smudges of weakened color. It made distinguishing individuals in the crowd a little harder than it would under a brighter, whiter sun, so Dash kept a sharp eye roving over the bustling mobs chattering and haggling around kiosks and wandering the streets. He hadn’t seen any ships he recognized on the Penumbra landing registry, but that didn’t mean there weren’t people here he didn’t particularly want to meet.
As they worked their way around an outdoor bar sprawled around a building made of cargo containers and what looked like hull plating, Dash noticed Leira and Viktor were just as alert. Part of it was, of course, because she was a courier, too, and the job just tended to attract trouble. But part of it was probably because Viktor was carting around a piece of ancient alien tech that could blow up stars. Or, could supposedly blow up stars, but Dash still maintained a healthy degree of skepticism about that, no matter how genuinely his two unexpected passengers actually believed it.
“Outta my way, worms!”
Dash looked toward the harsh voice and saw a big, bulky creature looming nearby. It had eyestalks and many appendages, but it mostly looked like a massive worm itself, which made its attempt at an insult kind of ironic. But Dash just smiled, stepped back, and gestured the creature past. It slithered by, leaving a trail of mucky slime on the road and a smell like a broken pressure-toilet.
“I carried one of those on a long passage, once,” Leira said. “Made a good fare off it, but had to spend most of it getting that friggin’ slime cleaned out of my ship.”
Dash chuckled. “I’ve only seen them a couple of times, myself. What are they called?”
“Not sure what they call themselves, but I call them never-carry-one-again-oids.” She followed Dash and Viktor in stepping gingerly over the slime-trail. “Oh, and they’re assholes, too.”
“That explains the smell, then,” Viktor said, his dry delivery making Dash’s chuckle become an actual laugh.
A short distance later they had to detour along a big grav-sled loaded with one of the massive reclamators being used to turn Penumbrian desert into something that would grow, well, anything. Just past that stood the Eternal Grind.
Dash led the way, threading his way around stacks of boxes, containment tanks, unmarked gas cylinders, electronic gizmos, and what looked like enough reels of fiber optic to stretch across the galaxy. Near the back was a counter, behind which a tall, cadaverous woman with a suspicious scowl and a faint moustache tapped on a data slate. As they approached, she looked up from her work and her scowl became even more suspicious.
“Pinetti!” Dash said brightly, offering his most disarming grin. “It’s so good to see you!” He glanced at Leira and Viktor. “This is Pinetti, proprietor of t
he Eternal Grind and one of my oldest, dearest friends!”
Pinetti plunked the data slate onto the counter. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t have your legs broken, Sawyer.”
Dash shook his head. “Ah, Pinetti, always the joker.” He turned to his companions. “She and I are always kidding each other like this. I’ll buy you a drink, I’ll take you dancing, I’ll have your legs broken.”
He turned his full weight of charm back on Pinetti, and her scowl deepened. Not a good sign.
Viktor crossed his arms. “I think she really does want to break your legs, Dash.”
“How many credits do you owe her?” Leira asked.
Dash shrugged. “Not many.”
“One thousand, three hundred and twenty-seven,” Pinetti said, her voice flat.
“Okay, hang on,” Dash said. “It was less than eleven hundred.”
“Interest.”
“I don’t think we’ll be buying any fuel here,” Viktor muttered.
Pinetti laughed at that, but there wasn’t a hint of humor in it.
“Buying fuel…” Pinetti shook her head in disbelief. “You came here to buy fuel from me?”
“Well,” Dash said, “you were our first choice. Figured that, you know, being such a good customer—”
“You’re a terrible customer. And unless you have one thousand, four hundred and twenty credits to pay your debt first, the only thing you’ll procure from me is a beating.”
“Wait, that’s a different number than the first one you gave!”
“Interest.”
“Pinetti, look—”’
Leira stepped forward and interrupted. “I have a little over nine hundred credits. How about you settle for that, plus enough fuel to let us translate to, I don’t know, say, Myrtle?” She glanced at Dash. “I can probably scrounge some more credits there, so we can—”
