Under Nameless Stars

by Christian Schoon

  Zenn breathed out at last, scanned the readout dials glowing in front of her, made herself focus on what would happen next. The autopilot reengaged, and the pod moved forward. Now it would enter the narrow open space that ran along the spinal cord. Unlike a mammal’s brain, the Indra’s cerebral material was arrayed like a tree’s leafy branches sprouting from the central trunk of the cord. This open cavity would take her in turn to the brain’s lateral ventricle, a fluid-filled area that, it had always seemed to Zenn, resembled the outline of a butterfly with wings outspread. It should be just twenty feet or so from there to her final destination: the hypertrophal lobe.

  The pod slowed to a halt then, held tightly between the innermost part of the double-layered skull walls and the dura mater, the tough membrane that enveloped and protected the brain.

  Zenn double-checked to make sure she hadn’t misread the gauge. No, no mistake. The Indra’s fever was generating 274 rads of Dahlberg radiation; 312 rads would disable all the instruments on the pod, and 330 rads would kill any life forms inside her.

  “Execute maser-caut incision to dura mater with minimum-length for pod ingress?” the computer inquired.

  Zenn told it to go ahead and another thin, metal arm reached out from the pod’s hull. The maser-cauterizer built into its tip crackled to life, and it slit an opening in the tough, white dura tissue. Surface tension pulled the two sides of the incision apart as the maser made its incision, its heat sealing the edges of the wound as it cut, the fluid around it boiling and bubbling in response. A few seconds later, there was an opening large enough to allow the pod to squeeze through. As the pod moved beyond the dura mater, the enormous brain itself came into view, the mushroom gray and off-white of its convoluted surface billowing away into the dimness. She read the D-rad gauge: 292 rads. Still rising.

  Freed suddenly from the grip of the dura, the pod escaped into the open space of the lateral fissure with an unexpected spurt. Before Zenn could react, the pod was knifing through the cerebrospinal fluid so fast, she had to slam her fist onto the emergency braking jet control to keep from ramming the brain tissue ahead of her. The pod slowed just short of impact and coasted to a halt with a slight bump against the soft, spongy mass. She tensed, staring at the monitor dials for any sign of response from the Indra. None came. She made herself relax.

  The autopilot resumed control and reversed the pod’s direction, pivoting and moving ahead, passing from the tunnel-like lateral fissure into the more expansive ventricle. The space was about the size of a small, narrow swimming pool and filled with straw-colored cerebrospinal fluid.

  Moments later, the outline of the hypertrophal lobe emerged on the view screen. Protruding into the ventricle, the HT lobe was a dangling, six-foot-long sack of heavily veined tissue. Thin bluish threads of interdimensional energy rippled across its surface, appearing, vanishing, appearing again in a pulsing, hypnotic display. The autopilot slowed the pod, allowing it to drift momentarily forward, then stopped, the beating polycilia holding it in position a foot or so from the lobe.

  She toggled a switch, and the view screen displayed the cabin of the med ship. Stav was working at one of the science station consoles off to the side of the pilot’s chair.

  “I’m at the lobe,” she said into the mic. “What now?”

  “Now?” Stav said, looking up from the console and giving her an unsettling grin. “Now you save the human race.”

  “How?” she said bitterly. “By giving you control of the Indra fleet? You think that will keep the Earth pure? You think the other planets of the Accord will let you do this? They’ll find a way to take back the ships. You won’t be able to stop them.”

  “You believe that’s what we intend? To take the fleet?” He shook his head, as if he pitied her.

  “I know you’re not giving the ships to the Skirni. They’re aliens. The New Law wouldn’t do that.”

  “Of course we wouldn’t. The Skirni’s compliance was necessary. Over the years, they’d infested most of the Indra ships in the Accord. They had nowhere else to go. And that made them useful. Once. But you’re wrong about the New Law. We don’t want the fleet. We never did.”

  “You don’t?” Zenn said, baffled.

  “You really have no clue, do you? About what’s inside of you. About what it can do. About the miracle you’re about to perform.”

  “What miracle?” She didn’t want to know. And she was desperate to know.

  “The Indra mutation your mother passed along to you? It affects more than simple neural tissue. We equipped it with a little clock. Ingenious, really. And it’s been ticking away ever since it took root in you.”

  Unnamable fear reared up in her, tightening her throat, making it hard to breathe, hard to speak. She forced the words out.

  “A biological clock? What for?”

  “For the moment when you would become the nexus. The nexus. What a marvel. That small bit of cultured tissue that lets a single mind connect the minds of all the Indra in the galaxy. The Spex, of course, think it will take them home. I’m afraid they’re in for a little disappointment.”

  “They’re not tunneling to their planet?” Zenn said, still not understanding. “Then where?”

  “Nowhere. The clock inside you? It’s about to turn the nexus into something unique, unprecedented. A knife, a scalpel. A tool to cut away the alien pollution that threatens the very essence of what it means to be human. What’s about to happen is the end of humanity’s longest war. A war fought for hundreds of years, undeclared, unseen, but war nonetheless. And you, Novice, are the Trojan horse that will win that war for us.”

  “But… how?” Zenn’s voice stuttered.

  “By destroying every Indra in the galaxy.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  Stav’s words sent fear like a drug coursing through her.

  Destroy all the Indra? He can’t. They wouldn’t.

  “When the nexus tissue links the mind of the Asyph with all the others of its kind, the little time bomb inside your head will activate. When that happens, you’ll no longer be seen as ‘friendly’ by the Indra. You’ll be detected as a foreign object, the enemy within. Her immune response will generate a massive Dahlberg radiation burst.”

  “Like my mother,” Zenn whispered. But Stav heard.

  “Yes. The loss that day was unforgiveable.” She saw Stav’s face darken. “She shouldn’t have died.” For a second, Zenn thought he was talking about Mai. Then he went on, his voice suddenly different, softer. “But she knew the risks. She knew what was at stake. She gave her life for all of us.”

  “Vremya.”

  Zenn saw his eyes close, his face contort. “Do not speak her name.” After a few seconds, he turned back to the console, took a deep breath and waved up another Virt-screen, his voice steady again, his expression emotionless, businesslike. “This time will be different. Because of you. The radiation surge will be channeled by the nexus to every Indra within several hundred thousand light years. It will vaporize the HT lobes and most of the adjacent brain tissue of any Indra within that range. At least, that’s our best distance estimate.”

  No!

  Zenn’s hand went to the autopilot control, toggled it frantically. She had to stop the pod or turn it around. She had to keep this from happening. The toggle clicked uselessly.

  “I’m afraid that’s inoperable,” Stav told her. “I assumed you might have a change of heart once you were inside.”

  “You’d do that?” Zenn said. “Destroy the Indra? Cut off all the worlds, all the beings in the Accord? Imprison everyone on their home planets – forever?”

  “It’s the only way,” Stav said, “to keep the alien corruption at bay. To keep human culture from being chipped away, bit by bit, until there’s nothing recognizable left. Those who think like you have never understood: humans and aliens were not meant to mix. The behavior of the Spex for the past centuries proves that.”

  “What behavior? What do you mean?”

  “I suppose you deserve to
know,” Stav said, as if about to grant her some precious gem of knowledge. “When the Spex first tunneled through to Accord space, eons ago, it was a freak accident. They discovered they were far beyond the distance their Indra could cover to get back home. Their engineers devised the nexus to cross that distance. And the most suitable host, the organism that best served their need, was a human being. Stunning, really, the odds. The one species in all the galaxy with a brain most hospitable to Indra tissue… was us. That alone tells you that humanity is unique. One doesn’t allow something that extraordinary to be defiled.”

  “The Spex were taking humans?”

  “It hasn’t dawned on you? Earth’s history of unexplained alien encounters? Unexplained abductions?”

  “But there’s never been any evidence! UFOs? People taken aboard spaceships? No one took any of that seriously.”

  “That’s right,” Stav said. “Who would believe some ranting backwoods rube saying he’d been probed by aliens? Or a farmer babbling about mutilated cattle? Why do you think the Spex chose those people, those places? There were times the truth almost came out. A Spex scout ship went down in what used to be called New Mexico. Another ship had an engine malfunction over Tunguska in Sino-Siberia. Knocked down an entire forest. But the Spex were smart. They covered their tracks, planted diversionary evidence.”

  Zenn had heard the stories. But she’d always considered them no more likely than other human fantasies – unicorns, sea monsters. But all that time, all those years, it was the Khurspex trying to get home.

  “They finally made it back to their world,” Stav said. “But it was a close call. They lost several ships on the way. One of them just beyond Procyoni space.”

  “That was the first ship,” Zenn said.

  “Yes. The abandoned Indra ship that brought star travel to all the races in this sector. The one that opened the floodgates of alien contamination. It was then that the New Law had its beginnings. Of course, no one believed them about the threat. But it didn’t matter. We watched. We waited. We knew the Spex would be back someday. And when they turned up, we made sure that it was us, and only us, they dealt with. Well, with the occasional Skirni, as I’ve said. We were only too happy to help them secure a fresh nexus.” Stav shook his head. “And now, because of you, because of what we’ve made you, Earth will at last be safe. Separate and safe. Forever.”

  He’s right. It’s because of me. All the Indra will die because of me. This horrific thought extinguished all other thoughts.

  “It won’t be long now,” Stav said, peering at a readout on the console. “Then it will all be over. In a flash, so to speak.”

  Zenn struggled to speak, panic and anger twisting like living things inside her.

  “You… You’ll die, too,” was what came out of her mouth. “You’ll be trapped here. With all the others. When the Indra are gone.” She at least wanted that much. To see him admit that he would pay for what he was about to do.

  “It would be a small price to pay, wouldn’t it? My life spent to purchase the future of all the lives of my species?” Stav paused, considering the prospect. “But no. That’s not how it will be. We’ve modified the nexus to ensure the Asyph herself will survive the extinction of the rest of her kind. She’ll then transport me and my crew back to Sol space. Then she’ll be sacrificed. And the last Indra ship will become an empty, drifting relic. A symbol of the priceless gift the New Law has bestowed on humanity: the gift of remaining human.”

  A sharp buzzing sound came from outside the pod. Static crackled through the cabin, and Zenn felt the hair lift from her scalp. Just the pod’s D-rad repulsers, she told herself, activating in response to the rising radiation. Then a loud zap sounded above her, a shower of sparks hissed and ricocheted around the cabin, piercing heat stung her shoulder. She thrashed violently against the seat harness, trying to get away from the pain, then froze as the pod interior was plunged into total, heart-stopping darkness.

  Zenn stared into the black silence, which became heavier and, somehow, blacker and more silent with every passing second. All the pod’s systems were dead. What now? Maybe the pod was too damaged to proceed. Maybe she would be spared the task of wiping out the most complex and mysterious life form in all the galaxy. A second passed, two seconds. But then the lights in the tiny cabin blinked on, off, on again. With a low electric groan, the pod’s systems came back on line, the repulsers whining into action.

  “Still there?” Stav’s voice, then his image displayed on the view screen. “Just some initial D-rad flux. She’s building up to the threshold. The nexus will make its final synaptic link inside you any minute now. The radiation spike will follow just after.” He looked up from the console. “I’m afraid that earlier, I lied. You won’t survive. But don’t despair. It’s a great thing, a noble thing you’re doing. Think of it as your contribution.” A tone rang from the console, drawing his eyes back down. “Ah… here it comes.”

  The pod bucked as if hammered by giants, the impact throwing her painfully against the harness straps. Alarms hooted frantically in the cabin, the radiation gauge swung wildly into the red, then dropped down, then shot up again, and Zenn was certain she would die the very next second.

  Instantly, without the usual warning rush of warmth and confusion, the interior of the pod vanished; her field of vision flared with a seething rainbow of convulsing, swirling colors, and her consciousness was plunged directly into a mind not her own. The colors dissolved, and there was blackness, stars and something else, huge, circular – the immense wheel of the interconnected starships of the Khurspex structure. But Zenn wasn’t seeing it. She was sensing it in some other way, receiving images, but not transmitted by anything like her human eyes – not received and processed by mammalian rods and cones responding to photons from a puny, narrow spectrum of visible light. She was receiving information through other organs of perception, organs capable of conveying a reality no human mind ever imagined. She was sensing as a stonehorse sensed.

  Flowing in fluid, dreamlike motion, the image before her now blew itself apart, the Khurspex structure spinning away, lost in dizzying, fast-receding distance, leaving only stars rushing at her. And not just the light of stars, but radiation-falls of blooming magnetic fields made visible, spreading like ripples; towering star-geysers, pushing cascades of boiling plasma up out of bottomless gravity wells; spiraling quark trails of throbbing, subatomic forces seething out in torrents from every iron-burning stellar forge, her-vision-not-her-vision gathering it all in, hurtling forward, propelled through a sea of a million million suns beating like as many cosmic hearts threaded through the never-ending dark.

  Overlaying this bewildering impulse stream came the sensation of the mind behind the rushing sensory river – the Indra’s consciousness, again reaching out to touch her mind, mingle its essence with hers, moving into her awareness with a feeling like a delicate, stinging-cold net thrown across the crown of her head and penetrating her skull, reaching down into the soft, delicate folds of her neo-cortex.

  Just when it seemed too much to endure, too terrible, too ravishing for a single mind to contain it, the scene collapsed into another vista, endless pulsing ranges of nebulae lit by hidden, primordial nuclear fires, one plane of vision appearing and rushing past, only to be replaced instantly by another panorama of swirling energies, then more blackness, then more luminous shoals of stars, until she was unable to breathe, unable to keep from losing herself in all she was feeling, on the brink of finally disappearing once and for all into the nameless forces pouring into her.

  And now the careening vision changed again, began to coalesce, to focus on a single bright red point glittering fitfully in the streaming void. The pace slowed as she saw three, four, five gas giants, all with attendant moons, all whirling past, all suspended in orbital ballet around their red Goliath of a central star. Closer to the star now, and she was surrounded by a seemingly endless vista of shattered fragments, rocky planetoids, jagged mountains of rocky, slow-tumbling debris
– an asteroid belt? And now she saw them. Indra. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Long, graceful bodies extending out of fissures and caverns in the asteroids. No, thousands of Indra.

  And Zenn knew then, at once, as the Indra knew, where this was. This was the unmistakable familiarity and perfect sweetness only one thing could evoke, one thing in all the frozen infinities and fierce glowing arms of the great, wheeling galaxies: this was home. And she was witness to it: the fabled breeding grounds of the Lithohippus indrae. No wonder the Khurspex were bound so closely to the stonehorses. The mind of the Indra, the Asyph, communicated this to her: they originated from the same planetary system. Both species felt the same irresistible pull to return, to renew, to regenerate, to live. Fane’s words came back to her. He was right, in his way. The Khurspex were shepherds, come to reclaim their far-flung herd.

  But now the Indra felt something else, and Zenn felt it, too. Something dark, painful, and it dawned on Zenn that this wasn’t a homecoming. Not yet. The Indra, Zenn realized with a shock, hadn’t physically moved at all. It dawned on her that everything she’d just experienced was only a prelude – the Asyph wasn’t physically traversing the gulf of distance she had just witnessed; it was plotting its course, preparing to tunnel, mapping the way it would go. Using the facial barbels that flickered in and out of this place and time to appear in another, the Indra had penetrated the continuum to plot out the path that would, when the time came, bring it to the destination it ached to reach.

  Then, at once, Zenn was back at the Khurspex meta-ship, seeing, as the Indra saw, the sprawling ring of ships, sensed now in a flowing spectrum of wavelengths that ebbed in and out of visible light, falling into infrared heat, rising to ultraviolet, shifting to high-energy microwaves and then cascading back and starting the sequence all over again.

  And Zenn could feel it – the nexus inside her, almost ready, almost completed, but not quite online, not yet, almost, almost. And contained within it, hidden, the tiny molecular clock, the lethal trigger: Stav’s time bomb, ticking down to the end. The end of this beautiful, uncanny Indra, the end of all Indra, the end of her own fragile, tiny body. Almost time. Only seconds now. Seconds.