The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  If the transport undocked now, Starfarer would pull it into transition, like a rowboat caught in the wake of a cruiser. But the transport possessed insufficient mass to survive transition alone.

  “Don’t let them loose!” Victoria shouted to the controller.

  “What? Why?”

  “It’s too late — We’re too near transition! Get everybody back inside!”

  The controller locked the transport into the docking module. The pilot swore at him, swore at their pursuers, swore at EarthSpace and Starfarer and the scientists.

  But at the same time she understood what was happening; she understood the danger. No one knew for certain what the conditions might be outside the starship between the point when it vanished from space-time and the moment of its reappearance. Esther slammed the transport’s hatch open, and, still cursing, ordered her passengers back into Starfarer.

  Victoria searched the display. Arachne sent confused and erratic signals.

  “The missile must have hit us a glancing blow,” Victoria said.

  “They can’t have planned to do this,” J.D. said. “How could they...?”

  “They are very determined to get what they want.” Zev did not sound like the innocent J.D. had described.

  Thanthavong hovered beside Victoria.

  “Arachne’s called in the damage control team,” Victoria said. “But the cylinder’s not seriously breached and the missile didn’t detonate. Maybe it’s not armed. Maybe it was only meant to cripple us. At least we’re still on course. I hope there isn’t an eight-point-five earthquake zone right over where it hit...”

  Staring at the display, Thanthavong suddenly gripped Victoria’s shoulder.

  “It hit us directly beneath the genetics department,” she said. “The gene stocks... sensitizing viruses...” She drew back, turned, and pushed off toward the exit. “I’ve got to get down there — ”

  Victoria went with her. J.D. and Zev followed close behind. They passed the transport waiting room, where the outbound passengers milled around in anger and outrage and despair.

  They reached the hill leading to the floor of the cylinder. At first everything appeared normal in the interior of the starship.

  Victoria saw the destruction around the genetics building.

  It was as if someone had placed a circle of land on a plate, and tossed it, so it fell back almost into place, but collapsed and jumbled. The earth, so recently covered with the lacy green of new grass, broke open to reveal streaks of harsh red clay. Saplings and bushes lay uprooted, flung against each other, in irregular concentric circles leading outward from the point of damage.

  The cracks in the earth cut across a hill, the hill that housed the genetics department.

  Victoria plunged down the slope at a dangerous speed, leaving the other three behind. First she pulled herself along the handholds, nearly in free-fall, then she took great leaping strides through microgravity, and then she ran, toward the earthquake zone, toward the broken streaks of earth.

  o0o

  The impact flung Kolya against the wall of the tunnel. He slid toward the floor, half-stunned. The body of the starship moaned around him, the bonded rocks grinding together beneath the stress — of transition? Or had Iphigenie been forced to reverse the sail? He did not know whether to feel joy or grief. He turned on the radio in his spacesuit, but heard only confused fragments of talk. The web remained useless.

  Kolya heard the faint high hiss of escaping air.

  Startled, he flanged his helmet shut and hurried to Griffith, who lay half in, half out of his spacesuit. Kolya struggled, but soon realized he had no chance of getting Griffith into the suit. He grabbed a survival pouch from the emergency rack, dragged Griffith free, and manhandled him into the sphere. He sealed it and activated the oxygen reserve. The government agent remained unconscious.

  I did far too expert a job on him, Kolya thought.

  He tried to drag Griffith in his silver sphere all the way to an elevator, so they both could escape to the surface. After ten meters he knew it was hopeless. Griffith, though not a large man, made a heavy, awkward weight in the full gravity of the starship’s lowest level.

  The sound of escaping air grew fainter as the atmospheric pressure fell.

  Kolya felt a low, grinding vibration. The baffles were sliding shut. The elevator was already closed off. With one final burst of exertion, Kolya dragged Griffith beyond the moving baffle. He did not want to leave him, but he could do him no good if they both were trapped between airtight doors. Kolya plunged through the narrowing space and ran toward the airlock. Behind him, the misaligned panels shrieked in their tracks with a high-pitched squeal that traveled through the ground, vibrated into his body, and pierced his hearing.

  I’ll have to travel around the outside of the ship, Kolya thought, and find an undamaged entrance — or go all the way to the axis, if need be — and bring help. From outside, I might detect the position of the air leak, the extent of the damage.

  He hoped he would be able to tell what had happened, what caused the impact.

  Am I still willing, he wondered, to fling myself into the void and hope our pursuers will stop to rescue me? I will probably never know the answer to that question. By now our escape or capture must be sealed.

  Kolya entered the airlock and started its sequence. The inner door slid shut, but refused to close the final few centimeters. Kolya shoved it until it caught, then waited impatiently while the airlock cycled. He held tight to the grips, afraid the lock might open prematurely and fling him out into space with the last of the air. It evacuated properly. At his feet, the hatch leading onto the outer skin of the starship opened halfway and stuck. He climbed down and squeezed through, no easy matter in the bulky pressure suit.

  He lowered himself onto the inspection cables and headed for the next nearest of the access hatches that dotted the ship’s exterior. With the outer surface of the starship at his back, he crawled rapidly over the cables like a four-legged spider. Only the cables lay between him and space.

  The spin took him in view of the sailhouse, the furled silver sail, and the magnetic claws that reached to the cosmic string. Both claws and string should have been invisible: the claws, an energy field, had no substance, while the cosmic string had enormous mass but only the single dimension of length. Yet Kolya perceived an odd, pointillist image: two flexing arms like tentacles, grasping a distant, slender thread. He could only see it when he observed it from the corner of his vision. Perhaps he imagined it all; perhaps he saw some perfectly natural phenomenon. Could Hawking radiation appear in the visible spectrum? Kolya did not pretend to understand cosmic string, or Hawking radiation for that matter.

  The starship spun him past the magnetic claws and into the canyon between Starfarer’s two cylinders.

  He continued to crawl. He had nearly reached the next hatch.

  But he had also moved into a region where the starship’s smooth rock surface became cracked and jumbled.

  Kolya raised his head. The ship curved gradually upward, forming a close horizon.

  The cosmonaut stopped, horrified, disbelieving. He had come upon the cause of the impact and the damage.

  Far from striking a glancing blow, then tumbling off harmlessly into space, the missile had plunged itself into the starship. It was lodged a meter deep in Starfarer’s skin.

  o0o

  When the earthquake hit, Infinity knew what had happened. He never doubted the accuracy of his perception.

  “What was that?” Florrie jerked her head up, and the small shells in her hair rattled. In the corner of her main room, the painted egg snapped from its thread. It fell, bounced on a woven mat, rolled in a half-circle, and stopped. It lay miraculously unbroken.

  Infinity picked it up gently and handed it to Floris. He watched himself perform such an ordinary gesture, astounded. He was in shock, he knew he was in shock. But he was powerless to shake away the stunned certainty that Starfarer’s pursuers had behaved every bit as badly as
he had feared they might. No: not quite as badly. They must not have used a nuclear warhead, or Starfarer would be dead.

  Arachne’s web remained silent. Infinity activated the console in the corner of Florrie’s main room and used the hard link to find the location of the damage and the condition of the ship. One of the few people left on board with hard-vacuum construction experience, he was part of the damage control team. He would have to go below immediately. Starfarer possessed self-healing capabilities, but it had limits.

  “What happened?” Florrie demanded.

  Despite everything, the ship remained on course. Infinity was amazed.

  “We’ve encountered the string!” He gave her the good news and kept the bad to himself. “I have to go for a while, Florrie. I’m sorry. Will you be okay?”

  “Yes.” Her smile was quiet, relieved, joyful. “Yes, I’ll be fine. They can’t make me leave now, can they?”

  Despite everything, Infinity grinned. “They sure can’t.”

  He left her sitting in her window seat, cupping the fragile egg in both hands.

  o0o

  Victoria broke into a run. Other people joined her, disoriented, shocked, appalled. She reached the edge of the tumbled earth. The genetics building looked like it had been shaken until it broke. She climbed across the rough ground. She was the first to reach the entrance. The doorway had partially collapsed. Someone was trying to crawl between its crushed supports. Victoria grabbed the clutching hand.

  “Help...”

  “It’s all right, “ Victoria said. “You’ll be out in a minute, it’s all right.”

  The green scent of crushed grass mixed with the dry tang of mineral dust and the meaty, organic smell of spilled nutrient medium. Broken rock scraped Victoria’s legs and sides, and dirt from the sagging hill’s turf sifted onto her. In the dimness of the destroyed building, Victoria could see Fox, Satoshi’s recalcitrant graduate student. Fox gripped her hand harder.

  “Hang on. Can you get a foothold? Pull yourself up, there’s more room above you.”

  With Victoria’s help, Fox scrambled higher. Panting, nearly sobbing, she dragged herself out of the rubble. Beyond her it was dark except for the light that reflected from a pillowy cloud of fog: evaporating liquid nitrogen.

  “Is anybody else still in there?”

  Fox gasped for air. “Satoshi, and Stephen Thomas, in the cold room...”

  Victoria pushed past her and dove through the opening. Sliding over the destruction and into the dark corridor, she sprawled on the floor beneath a layer of cold vapor. She stumbled to her feet. The nitrogen fog flowed across her shoulders and swirled around her legs. Above it, she could breathe. Emergency lights glowed faintly, but the dense mist concealed the floor. She had to feel her way along. Was the cold room the third door of the back side of the hall, or the fourth?

  “Satoshi! Stephen Thomas!”

  “Victoria, down here!”

  Satoshi’s voice: Victoria caught her breath with relief. Resisting the urge to try to hurry, she moved cautiously through the dimness. Tendrils of freezing mist, so thick and cohesive they looked like a liquid, swirled around her hips.

  o0o

  Infinity struggled with an access hatch that led into Starfarer’s underground. It opened about a handsbreadth, then stuck. Though the worst of the missile’s impact had hit the genetics department, a couple of hundred meters away, the earthquake had jammed this hatch as well. He tried again to move it, not wanting to backtrack to a more distant entrance.

  “Let me help.”

  J.D. Sauvage squatted beside him, grabbed the edge of the hatch cover, and settled herself.

  Infinity nodded.

  They both pulled. The alien contact specialist was a big woman. She powered her effort with her legs, not just her back.

  The hatch gave, springing open and slamming out of their grasp. They jumped away. It thudded onto the ground, bounced, and settled.

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you need help?” J.D. said. “Should I come with you?”

  “I might have to go outside,” he said.

  He plunged through the hatchway.

  o0o

  Infinity Mendez disappeared into Starfarer’s underground tunnels without really answering J.D.’s question. He was so shy and quiet that J.D. could not be sure whether he had been trying to ask her for help, or trying to tell her to stay behind. But he was all alone, and she could see that whatever the problem was at the genetics department, Victoria already had as much help as she needed. Maybe more help than she needed.

  J.D. climbed into the tunnel.

  She could not be sure which way Infinity had gone, so she kept going down whenever she could.

  She entered a region in which the effects of the impact became evident. An automatic baffle-door creaked open ahead of her. She stopped, scared: if the baffles malfunctioned they might blast her out into space.

  Nothing happened: no wind, no shocking cold, no vacuum drawling the air out of her lungs. The door had closed in response to the impact, but the ship’s systems opened it again when they detected no difference in the air pressure on either side.

  Nevertheless, she accepted the warning. As soon as she reached an airlock’s access room, she climbed into a pressure suit.

  “ — Cherenkov. Can anyone — ”

  The sound startled her. The disembodied voice emanated from the suit radio. She pulled the helmet shut. The transmission faded, then returned clearly.

  “This is Kolya Petrovich. Starfarer has been hit with a missile, which has penetrated approximately one meter into the surface. I cannot move it myself. I need help, tools, a radiation gauge. Can anyone hear me?”

  “Kolya?”

  “Yes! I am here, who is it?”

  “J.D.”

  “J.D., I do not suppose you have space construction experience?”

  “No.”

  “I must have help.”

  “I’ll go get somebody.”

  “There may not be time. Will you risk it?”

  “I’ve never been outside in space! I wouldn’t know what to do!”

  “This is not a complex job,” he said. “But I need more strength. More strength than I have.”

  By his voice, she knew he was tiring. J.D. looked around, hoping to see Infinity or some other damage crew member. But she was alone.

  “All right. I’ll try.”

  She entered the airlock. The controls were all too simple. The cycle began. The lock pumped away the air and opened the exterior hatch.

  J.D. looked down. The stars spun beneath her feet. The only point of stability was the end of the exit ladder. She gripped her end of the ladder and lowered herself hesitantly. The starship loomed above her. Space lay below and all around, separated form her by nothing but the fragile web of cables.

  The suit’s airgun hung against her leg, useless. If she lost her grip, the cylinder’s spin would fling her out into space. No airgun could power her back.

  “Kolya?”

  “I am still here. It is still stuck. Hurry, please.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Orient yourself in the same direction as the spin. I am just over your horizon.”

  She did as he asked, clutching the cables. She knelt there, balancing precariously. It was as if she were being flung headlong into the Milky Way. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath.

  “J.D.!”

  She opened her eyes again. “Yes,” she said. “I’m coming.”

  She had watched recordings of spacewalks; she had even experienced several direct sensory recordings. In every one, the effect had been of floating weightless in silent gentle space, with the stars a motionless background.

  This was entirely different. She crawled across the cables with the stars blazing past beneath her. The spin gave her the perception that gravity was pulling her downward into an unending fall.

  Her breath sounded harsh and sweat ran down her sides, more from fear that from exertion.
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  J.D. searched the upward-curing surface of the starship. The cables shuddered beneath her hands and knees, loosened by the impact of the missile. In places the smooth stone surface had cracked, and broken rock projected toward her from above. A projection scraped against her back, startling her with its touch and vibration. She shrank down, gripping the cables.

  After a moment she pushed herself up again and crawled forward.

  And then she saw the missile, a sleek shape designed for space to air flight, wedged in the cracked surface of the starship. His legs twined in the cables, Kolya struggled to loosen the missile. His perilous position terrified J.D. She hurried on.

  “Kolya! Wait — ”

  “J.D.! Bojemoi, I’m glad to see you.”

  She reached Kolya’s side. The cosmonaut touched the flank of the missile and drew his gloved hand along its side. It shifted slightly, vibrating against the cables so they quivered in J.D.’s hands.

  “Be careful.”

  “An elegant bit of warfare, this,” Kolya said. “Go around to the other side, and brace yourself. Hook up your work line.”

  “Can it detonate?” J.D. said.

  “That I do not know.”

  “They couldn’t have used an armed missile!”

  “J.D., of course they could. Perhaps they thought that the threat alone would stop us. But I am not willing to bet the life of the starship on it.”

  J.D. saw what Kolya planned. She moved into place and hooked up her work line.

  “I’m ready.”

  Suddenly the starship shuddered. The spinning stars wavered and brightened and disappeared. J.D. was surrounded by a multicolored, speckled, streaming haze. She gasped in wonder.

  The starship had entered transition.

  J.D. wanted nothing more than to lose herself in the sight of it. It flung itself toward her, upward, in an optical illusion of continuous approach that never came near. She shivered.

  The cables flexed beneath her. She forced her attention away from transition, back to the missile and Kolya. But the cosmonaut, too, gazed downward past the cables, past the end of the missile, into transition.