The Starfarers Quartet Omnibus

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  “I didn’t turn them up,” Gerald said. “It isn’t my responsibility to turn them down.”

  “Dr. Fraser MacKenzie —” Senator Derjaguin said.

  “You have the advantage of me, sir.”

  J.D. repressed a smile. Victoria knew who she was talking to. But Victoria had a habit of stressing her Canadian heritage, and playing down her knowledge of U.S. politics, when confronted with the assumptions of United States citizens.

  “I’m Senator William Derjaguin, of course, and this is—”

  “I’m can introduce myself, Jag, thanks,” Senator Orazio said. “Ruth Orazio, Dr. MacKenzie.”

  “An honor to meet you, Senator.” Victoria’s Canadian accent was more noticeable than usual. “You and Senator Derjaguin are welcome to observe the meeting. As guests.”

  “Mr. Hemminge’s right, there’s no point to —” Derjaguin said.

  “This is neither the Senate chamber nor the United States,” Victoria said, her voice low and tight. “Now please sit down.”

  “I’m afraid we must insist, Senator.” Professor Thanthavong rose to back Victoria up. “We have rules of procedure to maintain.”

  Derjaguin, accustomed to being treated as an elder statesman, had considerable justification for his expectation. But even a senior senator could meet his match in a Nobel laureate.

  “Very well, ma’am, if you wish it.”

  Gerald and the two senators sat down a few rows in front of J.D.

  “Avvaiyar and I have a proposal for where we should go,” Victoria said.

  An image of a star system formed in the center of the theater. The bright light washed out its clarity, but it remained comprehensible: the solar system, a small yellow star, Earth in its accustomed place, third from the sun. A bit of cosmic string, made visible by false color, hovered above the plane of the system. After the profusion of string in Tau Ceti’s system, Earth’s meager strand looked terribly inadequate.

  “This is a recreation of what observers from Earth saw when Starfarer entered transition,” Victoria said.

  A minuscule silver dot approached the string, and suddenly vanished in a flash of lambent light. The release of transition potential had a distinct spectral signature.

  Victoria nodded to Avvaiyar, who rose and spoke her name and waited a bare moment. The holographic display changed abruptly, fading from the solar system to the system of Tau Ceti. Avvaiyar gestured toward it. She was not quite as perfect as a goddess; her fingernails, instead of being long and buffed above rouged fingertips, were bitten short.

  “This is what Starfarer’s instruments observed a few minutes after our arrival,” Avvaiyar said.

  The same lambent light burst from a node on the tangle of Tau Ceti’s cosmic string.

  J.D. gasped. All around her, people reacted to the implications of that pattern of light.

  “They were here,” J.D. said, her voice barely a whisper. “Alien beings were here, waiting for us — how could they know to wait for us? — and when we got here... they ran.”

  “Who, J.D.?” Zev asked. “I don’t know what this means.”

  “The alien people, Zev. The ones who built the museum.”

  A spectrogram streaked its colored bands down one side of the holographic display.

  “The theoretical spectral signature,” Avvaiyar said. A second spectrogram, not quite identical, but nearly so, scrolled down next to it. “The signature of the emission we just observed. The signature of a spacecraft attached to a cosmic string, reaching transition energy.”

  “The spacecraft of alien beings,” J.D. said aloud, forgetting not to interrupt.

  “Oh, now!” Gerald Hemminge exclaimed. “Alien beings waiting for us?” He snorted.

  “Quite likely it was an observation post,” Avvaiyar said. “It must have been here — who knows how long? Automated. An AI. Like the dome. It detected us, it went to report on us.”

  J.D. grimaced. She could imagine what the report might say: “These folks are dangerous. Go back and slag them the way we slagged the dome.”

  “And it did go somewhere,” Victoria said. “Whatever or whoever it was, it went somewhere. We could follow. If we just had a chance to explain...”

  Avvaiyar’s system map expanded. The tangle of cosmic string had unravelled and dispersed.

  Victoria glanced up the terrace toward J.D.

  “J.D., what do you think?”

  “She has no more experience than the rest of us!” Gerald said. “All this is new.”

  Victoria smiled. “New to us. J.D. has thought about it.”

  A ripple passed through the system map. The relative positions of cosmic string and planetary orbits changed, as the scan recorded the string’s motion. When the image settled, the strands had pulled eve farther apart. Some dangled into the system from below, some from above.

  They were flying off toward the poles of the galaxy, and there was no way to stop them.

  “We should follow the alien ship,” J.D. said. “Where did it go?”

  “To Sirius,” Victoria said.

  “Sirius!” Sirius was a binary system, not expected to host Earth-type planets. Sirius A was large and young and hot, Sirius B tiny and dim. Beings who called it home would be very different from human beings.

  “Arachne’s solved the transition algorithm,” Victoria said. “Sirius is a ‘full’ system. That is, cosmic string exists. If we go there, no matter what we find, we’ll still have the freedom to enter transition and move elsewhere when we choose. All we have to do is continue the expedition.”

  She and Avvaiyar waited for questions.

  Chandra rose.

  “Am I understanding you right? You want to go off chasing aliens that you don’t know still exist, who might be flying a ship that you can’t even prove was there?”

  Her blank, translucent-gray gaze rested on Victoria, and the hypertrophied nerve clusters on her face darkened.

  “I thought Chandra wanted to be in space,” Zev whispered.

  “I think she’s just stirring things up to make a good sensory recording!” J.D. said, outraged. “Look, she’s taking this all in!”

  “She takes in everything, J.D.,” Zev said.

  “Maybe.” J.D. was unwilling to be placated.

  “We know the alien beings were here, Chandra!” Victoria said. “We know a ship left this system right after we arrived... with our bomb.”

  “We know the aliens were here sometime within the last million years,” Chandra said, “and Avvaiyar photographed a light flash that maybe was a ship. Those two spectrographs didn’t look all that identical to me.”

  “There’s always a bit of noise,” Avvaiyar said. “This is the real world — not a sensory recording.”

  “It’s risky,” Victoria said. “Of course it’s risky. I’ll admit that as many times as you want. We all knew it when we signed on.”

  “Not this kind of risk.”

  “Exactly this kind of risk. Look at the alternative! Do you want to go home and go to jail?”

  Chandra started to reply, then frowned thoughtfully, off in her own imagination. Maybe she was wondering what a prison recording would be like, and whether it would sell.

  “Chandra,” Victoria said, “let’s take a chance on a successful expedition. After we get back — You can go to jail and the rest of us will rent your experiences.”

  Everybody laughed. Almost everybody. Chandra was not among them, nor Gerald. J.D. glanced at the senators. Orazio did not even smile.

  Victoria stood for an hour, answering questions, referring the cosmology to Avvaiyar. J.D.’s sense of the meeting was that most people wanted to continue, but she was afraid to feel secure in her perception. She wanted the result too badly.

  She remained mindful of Gerald and the two senators, aware of their potential. When Derjaguin rose to question Victoria, J.D. felt, not precisely relief, but a break in tension that had been building in her. Zev patted her hand. She took his long webbed fingers and held them tightly.<
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  “There’s no question of continuing the expedition,” Derjaguin said, his voice flat. “The threat of the Mideast Sweep is too great — this spaceship can help us combat it. You people talk as if it belonged to you. It doesn’t. It belongs to the members of EarthSpace, your own countries that you left behind without a second thought.” He leaned forward, radiating his intense charisma. “If you go back now, I assure you that Senator Orazio and I will intercede on your behalf in the matter of kidnapping.”

  “We all know your opinion of Starfarer,” Victoria said. “But —”

  “Ah, and here I thought you’d never heard of me,” Derjaguin said.

  Some people laughed despite themselves, but J.D. found herself blushing in embarrassment for Victoria’s sake.

  Victoria tightened the muscles of her jaw.

  The laugh died away.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, senator, but you aren’t a member of the expedition. You have no say on the question.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  Senator Orazio rose. The considerable presence of Washington’s junior senator silenced the hum of discussion.

  “You know I disagree with my honored colleague on a number of subjects, most vehemently, Starfarer. I’ve always supported basic research in general and the deep space expedition in particular. It seems to me that returning is your best option. You have found that life exists outside the solar system. You have found that alien beings exist. If we go home, a second expedition is possible. It’s even possible that the news you bring will encourage world peace.”

  “Or increase suspicion,” Thanthavong said. “Against us, against EarthSpace. Even against you.”

  “Suspicion? Why?”

  “Senator, imagine the reaction if we return with nothing we can prove.”

  Orazio started to object, then hesitated.

  “You have proof!” Senator Derjaguin exclaimed. “You have the alien message. The telemetry from the planet. Samples from the dome. And the sculpture!”

  “Not even very imaginative,” Thanthavong said.

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “They could have made it all up,” Orazio said.

  “Everything we have, we could have created ourselves,” Thanthavong said. Her voice held no satisfaction. “Unless the samples J.D. gathered in the dome prove to be something unimaginably beyond our ability to duplicate, we have nothing that cannot be challenged as fabrication.”

  “And they would be challenged,” Orazio said, also without satisfaction.

  “Yes. We’re all very talented,” Thanthavong said. “J.D. with her novels and the rest of us with our laboratories... We could easily create a persuasive record of everything we’ve found.”

  “Nonexistent aliens,” J.D. said. “To fool the world’s governments into forming an alliance.”

  “It has been done, I believe, in fiction,” Thanthavong said.

  “An old plot.” J.D. refrained from adding that the usual result, even in fiction, was more weapons of war. “And the aliens are customarily much stranger than a meerkat.”

  “The expedition cannot be considered a success without persuasive proof of extraterrestrial life or extraterrestrial civilization.”

  “In that case,” Orazio said. “I’m afraid I have to agree with Jag. Starfarer has to return to Earth. I came into space to try to help the expedition continue. But I never had any intention of joining it for the long term.”

  “I know,” Victoria said. “And I’m sorry.”

  “Is that all you’ve got to say?” Gerald exclaimed. “You’re sorry?”

  Victoria shrugged. “That’s about it.”

  “But —”

  “Look at yourself, Gerald. You accepted the argument that the military needed Starfarer to use against the Mideast Sweep. But that’s a debatable point. You heard what Kolya Petrovich said about it! If you were as distressed as you pretend, you never would have continued to act as liaison between Starfarer and the Chi.”

  “It was my responsibility,” he said angrily. “And in retrospect, perhaps it was a responsibility I should have eschewed.”

  “Too bad you didn’t,” Stephen Thomas said, just loud enough to be heard.

  “Victoria, Starfarer is carrying an entire transport full of passengers who have been kidnapped —”

  “I don’t feel kidnapped,” Avvaiyar said. “I feel glad to be back on board. Most of the other people were returning under duress, too.”

  “I feel kidnapped!” Senator Derjaguin said.

  “Agreeing with the senator from New Mexico twice in one day troubles me,” Orazio said, “but given my choice I’d’ve had the transport undock.”

  “Starfarer had no responsibility for your predicament,” Victoria said, her voice flat and hard. “We gave you notice. We gave you time. It was the military carrier that ordered the transport pilot not to undock.”

  Beyond Victoria, the transport pilot shifted uncomfortably. She stood up and waited for silence.

  “My name is Esther Klein.” Esther’s shrug shimmered the loose lime-green satin of her jacket. “What Victoria said is true. I’m the transport pilot. We should have been gone. I had plenty of time to take us out of there.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Derjaguin asked angrily.

  “Because the carrier Hector ordered me not to. Because...” She was not meeting his eyes, or anyone’s. Then she raised her head and looked the senator in the face. “Because I fucked up big,” she said. “I wish I hadn’t. But I did.” She turned toward Victoria. “And that’s what I’ll testify to. Whenever we get back.”

  J.D. wanted to cross the amphitheater and hug the young pilot for admitting what she clearly considered an inexcusable lapse in judgement. Victoria gave her a short glance of acknowledgement and faced the senators again.

  “You’re here by mistake,” Victoria said. “But it’s the mistake of your own country’s military, not a mistake we made. I’m sorry that you may have to pay the consequences of their illegal action.”

  “Their illegal action!” Gerald exclaimed. “Good lord, Victoria, you have nerve. You’re the one who stole the starship.”

  “So I stole the starship!” Victoria cried. “So shoot me! Keep saying I stole it, that doesn’t make it true. That doesn’t change why most of us stayed on board — out of choice. We upheld Starfarer’s charter, instead of creating a war machine!”

  “I must warn you, you’re at risk of seeing Starfarer put under martial law.”

  Victoria stared at him, speechless.

  “Martial law!” Professor Thanthavong looked close to laughter. “You can’t threaten martial law! We’ve got no militia!”

  “Perhaps you aren’t aware, professor, that the administration has certain measures we can take, under extraordinary circumstances.”

  Thanthavong sat back, startled, and J.D. became uncomfortably aware of the hot sun beating on her shoulders. She brushed her hand across the top of her head. Her hair was hot, her scalp damp and itchy with sweat.

  “Such as what?” Satoshi said. His voice was very low, stripped of its usual humor, and scary. “Such as crashing the web?”

  “No!” Gerald exclaimed. “Good god, Satoshi, no, not at all! We can take control over the AIs and the ASes —”

  J.D. imagined a squad of squat little machines advancing on the amphitheater with dusters and vacuums, instructed to disrupt the meeting.

  She started to laugh. She could not help it. Her colleagues imagined similar scenes. The whole meeting burst into laughter.

  Gerald glared at Victoria, as if it were all her fault. He waited in silence for the hilarity to die down, his forehead furrowed with anger and embarrassment.

  “There are resources,” he muttered.

  Victoria had not laughed at the assistant chancellor. She had not even been close to laughing.

  “You’re welcome to have your say,” she said coldly. “The senators are welcome to have their say. Even Mr. Griffith is welcome to have his say.
You can all persuade us. Or threaten us. You can try.”

  She sat down.

  The amphitheater filled with hot silence.

  “Tell them what to do, J.D.,” Zev whispered.

  “I already told them what I want,” she said softly. He expected her to behave like Lykos, leading and directing her colleagues. She almost wished she had that power.

  “Alzena Dadkhah.”

  The chief ecologist, dressed in black robes that covered her completely, rose and waited for a few seconds after speaking her name. No one interrupted her. She stood with her head down, her shoulders slumped, everything about her revealing deep distress. She had been on the transport, heading home, believing that her honor and that of her family depended on her leaving. Nothing about the circumstances that kept her on the starship had changed that debt of honor, except to make it heavier.

  “I would like to remain here.”

  “I’m so glad, Alzena —” Victoria said.

  “Here,” Alzena said again. “Whether you of the expedition decide to go on, or return home, I wish to remain in the Tau Ceti system. On Tau Ceti II.”

  “Alzena, it’s impossible,” Thanthavong said.

  “I must not go on,” the ecologist said. “And I cannot go home. I have no choice but to stay here.”

  Her voice was quiet, and intense, held tautly under control.

  “You can’t stay here all alone. You’d be in a wilderness,” Satoshi said. “Did you listen to my reports? There’s no evidence that any sentient being has ever visited Tau Ceti II.”

  “I don’t care. I’ve lived in deserts. I’ve lived in mountains. I can live on a new world.”

  “We can’t prove you’d be able to eat anything down there,” Stephen Thomas said. “We can’t even prove you’d be able to grow anything.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “This discussion —” Thanthavong said.

  “Wait a minute!” Chandra exclaimed. “That’s not a half bad idea. If she stays, I’ll stay too.”

  J.D. was not the only person shocked when Chandra interrupted Professor Thanthavong. Thanthavong regarded the sensory artist with an expression part amused and part outraged.

  “It would be great,” Chandra said. “God, there would be material there to work with that nobody else has ever imagined, let alone experienced!”