The Farthest City

by Daniel P Swenson

  She sighed. “Bye, Enzo.”

  #

  Sheemi slept deeply that night and woke up tired. She rolled out of her bunk, cleaned up, and headed for the lab to input the previous day’s scans. Xin and Gavin were already immersed in data windows, summoning figures and tables across an entire wall. Omeri and Abbot sat at the table, manipulating star charts and plotting courses.

  “Morning, Sheemi,” Gavin said, scanning through text at a furious pace.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Xin detected signals originating from some nearby systems. Signals with information content. Encrypted, of course, but that hardly matters. And you helped as well.” He pointed to some data tables crammed with numbers. “Based on these molecular signatures from the artifacts you scanned, we estimated probable metallicity. We used that information to filter our star data, focus on probable departure candidates, extrapolate outwards for destinations. Xin’s been using the results to target her signal analyses, nonstop of course. And now she’s found something. Somethings, I should say.”

  He seemed giddy as he blinked a call.

  “Colonel,” he said. “Yes, yes. Of course.”

  Sheemi remembered her remaining scans. They seemed unimportant now, but she went ahead and loaded them, then left the scientists to their work. She imagined hope spreading through the ship as the news spread. This could be it. They would find the chines. Get help. Go home.

  #

  They IFD’d again the next day to a system called OGLE-2005-BLG-169L, which had produced the strongest signal. They explored the system—a red dwarf star with three planets and twelve moons, but no settlements. Sheemi spent the days parsing probe sensor data, reviewing high-res telescope imagery in case the pattern recognition software had missed anything.

  The largest planet was a featureless green gas giant, and the other two small rocky spheres with closer orbits. A few of the moons had tectonic activity, but nothing interesting otherwise.

  Her eyes grew bleary from looking at hundreds of topographic images, looking for something, anything that might reveal the chines were there. Structures, signs of ground disturbance, satellites, nighttime illumination. She imagined she was staring downscope, but the kill shot never came.

  Gavin spent his time analyzing gravity data, although she couldn’t envision exactly what he was looking for. Could chines affect gravity itself? It wouldn’t surprise her—they had rebuilt humanity, designed this ship. Was there anything they couldn’t do?

  Despite their best efforts, no one found anything. Xin took it particularly hard. The whole ship had mobilized on her results. She was always deep in virt now, reviewing data, searching for more signals, rubbing her temples as if the chines would reveal themselves if she thought hard enough. She hadn’t slept for over twenty-four hours.

  “It’s as if the signal turned itself off,” Xin said midway through the second day.

  “Maybe it did,” Meszaros said cryptically.

  Gavin and Xin looked at him. It was one of his typical, unhelpful suggestions.

  “You may be right,” Xin said.

  Ciib gave the order to IFD the following day. The next system on Xin’s list, OGLE-2005-BLG-071L, wasn’t much different from the last system—another red dwarf. The initial excitement had worn off. Everyone was getting irritable. They had come over nine thousand light years, a third of the way to the galactic core, and other than some abandoned artifacts, they’d found nothing. The other soldiers kept asking Sheemi for information, but she had nothing to tell them. Nothing hopeful. 071L refused to yield so much as an abandoned artifact, despite the signals they’d detected just days ago.

  Connor stopped her between shifts. “How’s the baby?”

  “Fine.”

  “Good,” he said.

  He reached out to touch her belly, but she stopped him. The touch of his hand took her back to when she’d been lost and hopeless, seeking death. She grimaced, and he stepped back, looking hurt. He turned and left before she could explain.

  Colonel Go asked Gavin to search for essential fuel components. People started whispering—they would run out of fuel, be marooned in an empty system until they starved, or worse. Amid the rumors and frustration, nausea caught up with Sheemi at last. She sometimes had to run to the nearest head to vomit.

  Sheemi guessed they would IFD soon.

  “Forget the third system,” Omeri said in the lab one morning. “We’ve tried your approach. Now it’s time to try something else.”

  “I detected three signals,” Xin said. “Non-random, encrypted signals with high information density. We’ve only investigated two of them.”

  Omeri shrugged. “The signals must have been an artifact. Your software detected a meaningless pattern in the randomness. It can happen. It’s unlikely, but statistically possible.”

  So it’s true, Sheemi thought. They were no closer to finding the chines after all.

  “The chines are out here,” Meszaros said, his voice imperious. Everyone turned to him. “They just haven’t chosen to reveal themselves.”

  “We’re running out of time, Xin. We’re almost out of fuel,” Abbot said. “We’ll see what Gavin and the colonel decide.”

  “Yes, we will,” Xin said, and walked out.

  Sheemi found Xin sitting on the floor, hands over her face, tears falling onto her lap. She patted Xin’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault.”

  “Then whose is it?”

  “All we can do is try,” Sheemi said lamely. What else was there to say? It was the truth.

  “If we don’t find the chines, millions of people will die. We’ll die. And the goddamned universe is playing tricks on me. I found the signals. I have the data.” Xin let out a long sigh. “These useless data.”

  She’s at her limit, Sheemi thought. “Let’s go eat. You need a break. You’re going to miss something important if you keep going like this.”

  “All right,” Xin said.

  The ship chose that moment to jerk beneath their feet.

  Chapter 11 – The Dead

  The floor burned his fingers and cheek where he lay in the dark. Kellen scrambled to his feet, reaching out to feel around him. Nothing. The heat of the floor baked into his shoes.

  Light appeared from above. He was alone in a room of some sort. He wasn’t in the sphere, that much was obvious. The walls loomed over him, seeming to curve in on themselves until they had tapered to a rectangle several meters above his head. The walls were perforated by holes of various sizes. He tried to see through, but the holes betrayed only blackness.

  Where was he? Where was everyone else? The events in the sphere came flooding back. He felt dizzy.

  “Sayuri! Abby! Izmit!”

  The walls seemed to absorb his voice. His breaths came in short gasps. He resisted the urge to scream. Don’t panic.

  Keeping fear at bay, he touched one wall after another. The third wall stung his hand, as if it had discharged static electricity. It split into two vertical panels, each panel receding into the adjacent wall until the way was clear for him to exit. Abby and Izmit stood in the adjacent space, turning toward him with perplexed looks on their faces. He stepped out, joining them.

  Abby’s face broke into a relieved smile. She gave him a brief hug.

  “Are you okay?” Izmit asked.

  “Yes,” Kellen said, some of his fear beginning to fade. “You guys?”

  “We’re fine,” Izmit said.

  Something seemed at odds with that pronouncement. With a sinking feeling, he turned about, inspecting each part of the room they inhabited. “Where’s Sayuri?”

  “We don’t know,” Izmit said.

  Black panels occupied both adjoining walls. The fourth wall contained white panels with a black display the size of his hand about where a doorknob would be. Kellen stepped back to examine the room itself. Grooved tracks ran vertically up the wall, the same ones they’d seen on their way to the sphere. The tracks ran up through an opening in the ceiling several meters
above. Something moved up there, unless his imagination had tricked him. He examined the display more closely. It contained several lines of softly illuminated blue-white chine symbols.

  “We tried it,” Abby said. “We thought it might respond to you.”

  He ran his fingers along the display’s glass-like surface, but no circle appeared. He tapped it. Nothing.

  Panels snapped shut behind him, and Kellen whirled around. The smaller room he’d exited had shut. A hissing sound built in volume, then gave way to a crackling like fat in a hot pan.

  “That happened before,” Abby said. Some of the happiness Abby had shown on Kellen’s arrival fled from her face. She twisted her hands together and glanced at the panels. “When I arrived, I heard the same sounds before Iz appeared, then again before you appeared.”

  Kellen tried to follow the logic, his thoughts still sluggish. “What does that mean?”

  “The other ones are getting hot,” Izmit said, his hands on the panels nearest him.

  Abby murmured agreement.

  “What’s happening?” Kellen asked. “Where are we? We’ve got to find Sayuri.”

  “I think we must have fallen off the platform, ended up down here,” Abby said.

  They looked up at the opening overhead.

  “But we’re not hurt,” Kellen said. “We couldn’t have fallen through that.”

  The panels slid open on either side and a smoky vapor spilled out, smelling of chemicals and scorched metal. Kellen looked inside as the gas cleared. Someone lay there—a human form, thin and delicate. Kellen stepped into the chamber. Sayuri lay there, her thin limbs akimbo.

  “She’s not moving.” Abby’s voice trembled.

  Kellen dropped to the floor, gently pulled her close, and cradled her body. He couldn’t see what was wrong with Sayuri. He felt for a pulse, but no beat signaled life. He put his face next to hers but couldn’t feel her exhale.

  What should I do now? He remembered the medical training citizens had received after the invasion started. What had they said to do? Compressions. Chest compressions. Help them breathe.

  He straddled her body and pushed down. One, two, three, four, five. He put his lips to hers. They were cold. He blew into her mouth. More compressions. One, two, three, four, five. Breath.

  Sayuri did not stir. She did not breathe or speak or sing the way she always had.

  “We need help,” Kellen said, trying and failing to keep his voice steady.

  Izmit tried to open the white panels, but without his tools, he had no way of forcing them. The panels refused to open.

  Fear clawed at Kellen’s insides like a wounded animal begging to be released. He blew out a long, ragged breath and found he couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Help!” he screamed.

  “Help us!” the three of them shouted. “Somebody help us!”

  Izmit began to climb where the chine tracks ran up the wall, but the grooves gave too little purchase. He pulled himself up by his fingertips and fell back. He tried again with no better result. “It’s no use.”

  Abby inspected the walls and panels with her hands, tapping with her knuckles, feeling for some hidden door, Kellen guessed.

  “Someone please help us! Please help us!” Kellen screamed over and over until his throat was raw.

  Izmit perched over them, a look of helplessness on his face Kellen had never seen there before.

  Tears streamed down Kellen’s cheeks. Not again, he thought. I can’t let it happen again. An agonizing familiarity tore through him, ripping open old wounds.

  “She’s dying,” Abby said, crying and stroking Sayuri’s hair.

  Sayuri lay utterly still in his arms.

  “No.” Kellen laid her body on the floor. “She’s already dead.”

  Kellen felt as if he was in one of those dreams where nothing went right no matter how hard he tried. He’d vowed he would never lose another friend. He’d avoided making any, partly with that goal. And she’d snuck into his heart, and now she’d gone, taking a piece of him with her.

  He pointed a finger at Izmit. “She’s dead because of you.”

  “What?” Izmit asked.

  He’d been wrong to trust. He’d known it, and he’d gone ahead anyway, and the lies had compounded, and she was dead like Pearl before her.

  Kellen pushed the Digger up against the wall. “Who were those people? Why are you working for the Hexi?”

  Izmit pushed him back. “I don’t know, all right? I never knew the Hexi were involved. I thought those people were with the government. They helped me. They helped us.”

  The government had taken away Cesar, forced Kellen into hiding. “You’re a liar!” Kellen shouted.

  “Stop it!” Abby cried out. “We’ve got to get out of here. I just want out.”

  Izmit spun around, his gaze focused on the wall. Something moved there, crawling down one of the chine tracks.

  Abby screamed.

  Kellen gasped.

  A glittering, segmented insect the size of his arm unfurled itself from the chine track, uncoiling in a smooth, unhurried motion. It deposited itself onto the floor and moved toward them.

  Kellen kicked at it, even as he pulled Sayuri with him toward the far wall.

  “Look,” Abby said.

  More creatures came down the walls.

  “Back against the doors!” Izmit shouted as he kicked the insects away.

  Kellen scooted back along the floor, pulling Sayuri with him until his back was against the panels he’d exited earlier.

  Abby shrieked.

  The insects came on, antenna waving, their legs clicking on the hard metal floor. Kellen kicked the first insect to reach them, but more came.

  “Stay away!” he yelled, imagining them biting him, venom-beaded stingers puncturing his flesh.

  He shrank into the smallest possible space, but the insects paid no attention to him. They ignored Izmit and Abby as well. More came down the wall and moved around them like a current around three islands. They clustered around Sayuri, picking at her with their claw-like appendages.

  Abby sobbed as she batted them away, but they would not be refused.

  Carrion eaters. They eat the dead. Why had he never heard of these? Wouldn’t someone have known about these horrible creatures and warned him?

  He placed a hand on one as it waved its antennae over Sayuri’s face. After it failed to react, he hurled it as hard as he could. It struck the wall, fell to the floor, and lay belly-up. One of its fellows inspected it, then dragged it off.

  “They won’t hurt us.” Kellen got to his feet and hurled more of the creatures away from Sayuri. “I don’t think they’re interested in anything that moves.”

  Izmit stomped on the insects, crushing them and creating more distractions for their fellows.

  Next to Kellen, Abby held one in her hand, examining it. He was about to ask her what she was doing when the panels behind him opened. The other two sets of panels opened. Kellen lifted Sayuri’s body away from the insects now covering the floor. He stood with Izmit and Abby, back to back, as the creatures swarmed into each chamber and dragged out the people that lay there, two agents, a man and a woman. The insects pulled them across the floor. Abby dropped the insect she’d been holding and felt the man’s wrist and neck.

  “Dead,” she said, her voice quavering.

  It was too much for her. Too much for all of them. Kellen tried to feel sorry for the agents, but remembered their harsh words and how they’d thrown Izmit to the floor. The insects dragged the bodies toward the white panels.

  A small army of insects worked to pull a new, huge form out of the third chamber. The Hexi—dead as well, Kellen guessed. He had no idea how to tell a dead Hexi from an unconscious one and no desire to try. One of the chambers closed again. The same sounds issued from inside.

  “More agents?” Abby said.

  “There were three in the circle,” Kellen said. “And two more outside.”

  “We’ve got to get out,” Izmit said. “W
hat if they’re alive?”

  Something about Izmit’s words nagged Kellen, but he pushed it aside. Now was not the time. They had to find a way out, even if it was too late for Sayuri.

  They had no more luck getting out than before, though, until the closed chamber opened once more. Another agent lay prone in the chamber. Kellen sighed with relief and dread and even some pity.

  Abby felt for a pulse and shook her head.

  The insects came as before and dragged the body to the white panels. The room was crowded now, Kellen and the others surrounded by four bodies and a swarm of insects. Standing there with his back to his companions, Sayuri’s body weighing down his arms, Kellen wasn’t sure how much longer he could last. He pictured himself slumping to the floor and the insects swarming over him, blood spilling onto the floor.

  Long lines of chine symbols scrolled across the display. After a series of clicks, the white panels retracted into the wall. The insects carried the bodies onward like prizes, and Izmit followed cautiously. “Come on. Before it decides to shut again.”

  Kellen carried Sayuri through. They would leave this place and bury her, and he would never come back. What a mistake. He was the biggest fool of them all, and now she was dead.

  They stood in the bottom of a stone-walled shaft, as if they were in an immense well four meters across. Pale light filtered down to cast dim shadows at their feet. High above, he could see pipes intersecting the shaft, and smaller lines of some sort like a web. Chine tracks ran up along the walls and out of sight. Some were large enough for them to climb, grooves and teeth several centimeters long. The insects were in the process of climbing the chine tracks and somehow dragging the bodies with them. Kellen stared at the bodies rising up the walls as if by levitation.

  “Where’s Abby?” Izmit asked. “Abby?”

  “Coming,” she called and stepped outside.

  She held one of the insects. Looking closely, it reminded him of the bugs he’d played with as a child, the ones that rolled up into a ball when you touched them.