by Mel Keegan
“You can see the change when a guy…?” Travers looked baffled.
“As they become receptive? Yes. Not that I’ve ever see this for myself, but – ask Mark, he’ll explain it. It’s not a secret. The Resalq aren’t embarrassed by their own biology. When they’re receptive, there’s a tendency for the male genitals to fold back into the body cavity, because they’re about to fall dormant for a long, eleven month gestation period. The further they fold back, the more receptive an individual has become.” He drained the beer and dropped the can into the chute. “The hormonal reflex is primeval, it goes back to the dawn of their species. But the primitive reflex is still there. It’s one of the reasons they survived the century or so after the Zunshu killed their homeworlds. Mark himself was born in that time.”
“Prolonged stress makes them breed,” Travers said slowly, as if struck broadside by an epiphany. He chuckled richly and gestured back toward the garden. “It also makes them prickly and short-tempered.”
“The young ones whose hormones are pumping – yes, it does.” Marin shared the moment of humor. “After a certain age, or if they’ve already had two or three young, the hormones don’t pump the same way.”
“You mean, Mark won’t be feeling this?” Travers hazarded.
“Right. He’s too old by centuries to feel any compulsion. He bore three young, of course; two survive. He could still bear again, but only by choice. At his age, he’s much more likely to be the sire, the other half of the partnership.” He shared Travers’s fascination. “It still takes two to dance the old tango, but among the Resalq the roles are reversible.”
“And Tor,” Travers wondered, “doesn’t have any choice in the matter?”
“Of course he does.” Marin glanced at his chrono. “We’d better head for Ops, if we don’t want to miss this. Tor? He can take shots and just turn the hormones right off – if he wants to. But there’s a hefty psychological thump. He won’t want to. Academically, he might choose to have the shots. If he’s cranky enough to refuse, Dario will just take the shots to make bloody damned sure he, himself, is temporarily sterile … and not even tell Tor he’s done it, if he has any sense. Keep the boy happy with plenty of healthy sex till we’re out of trouble and home. Then, if they’re still inclined, let nature take its course. Or not,” he added. “Once the stress is off, Tor’s hormones will swing right back to neutral. The imperative will fade away. They’ll have children when and if they choose to, not when nature says they should, or must.”
“Well, damn.” Travers was on the way back to the elevator. “You can start to forget the Resalq are, well, alien.”
“But they’re very alien,” Marin said quietly as he thumbed for the lift. “And I always thought the delight was in the difference.”
Operations was already busy, and the navtank was bright with a live graphical display. Lai’a was translating the ten-dimensional datastream of transspace into visuals sensible to the human brain. Marin licked his lips as he looked into it, seeing a roiling, writhing confusion of imagery which he had come to recognize. He knew a gravity tide when he saw it, and a fast-time channel, a slow-time eddy, and the silver-gray shoals of the driftway into which Lai’a was already taking them.
Its voice was serene. “Orion Driftway. I am searching for the precursors to a gate event. Do you wish to transit on the first appropriate event, Captain?”
On the other side of the tank, Vaurien, Jazinsky and Rusch were immersed in the data racing through a wide flatscreen while Mark worked with a handy and Tonio Teniko looked on with unblinking, feverish eyes. His hands were in his pockets, his breathing was rapid and shallow. Marin might have worried about the feral look of him, but Bill Grant was only meters away, taking readings even then. Curtis caught Grant’s attention, and Bill only shrugged. Teniko was as stable as he was ever likely to be.
“I don’t know – do we want to take the first gate?” Vaurien referred the question to Mark. “Give me a reason not to.”
“There is no reason,” Jazinsky said promptly, “and we don’t have a lot of time to waste. Hard as it is to believe, this really is Orion 359 – and we have a wealth of data from the Aenestra. We’re not here to survey star systems! But we can certainly buzz the zone, looking for any signs.” She frowned sidelong at Mark. “Of survivors.”
“The proverbial needle in a haystack.” Mark looked up from his work for only a moment. “I’ve already discussed this with Lai’a. Given a safe transit of the gate, we’ll cruise fast out of the Orion Drift. The Aenestra data has already been analyzed. Alexis and Leon went over the study performed by Lai’a, if only to provide the living, flesh and blood perspective.” He set the handy aside now and leaned on the side of the tank, watching the temporal streams dart and writhe like hatchlings in a snake’s nest. “By all accounts, there’s only one system with any potential for survivability for species like ours, in range of the local Drift.
“It was cataloged as Orion 521. Smaller, redder, cooler than the stars we’d prefer, given the choice, but if it had a rocky planet with a breathable atmosphere, right in the sweet spot … well, life forms like ourselves might survive in the long term. If,” he added, “they could eat the local vegetation, when they got here. And if they could manage a slingshot around the black hole, Orion 359 itself, and get themselves onto a reliable vector for 521. And if they had enough viable cryogen tanks to make the sublight journey, which would have taken around eight years.” He puffed out his cheeks, shook his head. “In fact, it’s far from impossible.”
“And we know what we’re looking for, and where we’re looking,” Vaurien said thoughtfully.
“Oh, it’s well worth a look,” Mark said with all due caution, “but I’ve warned the others not to get their hopes up. The ifs, ands and buts associated with survivability out here are appalling, even if one had a support ship! With only a number of escape pods … well, it’s not impossible.”
“Cryogen tanks,” Travers mused as Vidal, Rabelais and Queneau appeared from the armordoors. “In the pods?”
“Twenty, recessed into the deck of each pod,” Mark affirmed, “under hatches. Powerful maneuvering jets in the tail and bow, super-compressed propellant tanks. A halfway decent generator in the nose, six cubic meters of emergency rations behind a bulkhead in the back. Atmosphere and water recycling plants. If they could manage a slingshot around the black hole, accurately calculate a three-thousand-day flight, and get themselves into cryogen for the duration … then, their challenge would be a hard landing on a cold, dark planet where we know almost nothing of the environment.”
The words were bleak, but Marin had gone on beyond this thinking. “If I were up against this, I’d stay in cryo,” he said quietly. “Even if I made it to the planet, if the environment was so unfriendly, I’d stay tanked.”
“And – what, set up a comm beacon, hope for rescue, sometime?” Travers’s brows arched. “The beacon would bring the Zunshu like blow flies to dead meat.”
“And we,” Vaurien added, “don’t have time to search a whole system for a flock of escape pods that’ll be buried under a thousand years’ worth of detritus.” He gave Mark an apologetic look. “Another time. Assuming we get the resolution we want with the Zunshu, a Resalq crew can come back with Lai’a and spend a year here, if that’s what it takes.”
“All the more reason to be swift on this reconnoitre.” Mark adjusted his combug.
“Or maybe even wake up to yourself and not bother looking at all,” Tonio Teniko’s voice growled from the furthest corner of Operations. “If they’re likely to be tanked, why do this? Send somebody else, when there’s time to waste.”
A pained expression passed across Mark’s face. Marin saw it before he drew a mask over it. His tone was patient, measured, as if he were addressing a dull child. “For the moment, assume the crew of the Ebrezjim could get themselves here. It’s highly likely a number of tanks – or pods – would have been damaged en route or upon landing, Tonio, rendering continued cryosleep impossi
ble for a considerable percentage of the crew. Given an environment even marginally appropriate, the company would certainly have chosen to cannibalize tanks and pods and make a survival attempt. If this took place, they or their descendents might still be waiting for retrieval, and desperate for supplies of every kind. And consider this: should the Lai’a expedition suffer defeat in Zunshu space, we won’t be coming back, and it’s likely no one will be following us, perhaps for another millennium. A couple of generators, a field medical facility, an AI, drones, food, raw materials – all this will cost us little, but might make the difference between an isolated colony struggling and failing.”
“If, if, if,” Teniko groaned. “This might be, and that could be. The truth is, if the crew of the Ebrezjim had any bloody sense, they’d cut their losses. Fifty percent of the tanks are damaged, people can’t get back in? Tough shit. You’re still scoring a fifty percent survival rate right there. I’d take the odds.”
As he spoke, Shapiro, Kim, Rodman and Hubler stepped into Ops and were puzzled as Jazinsky said acidly, “Yes, well, not everybody in the universe is a mercenary little snot. A lot of humans would also put the group first … we all come home, or none of us do.”
“That’s a bunch of bullshit,” Teniko began.
“Perhaps it is, but it was human nature ten thousand years before you were born.” Vidal’s voice was a whipcrack. “Mouth shut, Tonio, right now. What are you doing here, anyway? You were banned from Ops.”
“I asked him to come and … merely observe,” Mark said with rueful humor. “One thing you can trust Tonio to do. He’ll always play your devil’s advocate. It’s become his principle source of value.”
Teniko’s mouth was opening again, but Vaurien jabbed one dagger-like finger to stop him. “One more syllable, and you’re out of here.” Tonio’s lips sealed, compressed, and he retreated into the corner, hunkered down into a chair. Vaurien turned back to Jazinsky and Vidal. “Lai’a, we’re looking for an event. Take the first one you can find that’s up to specs … you and Doctor Sherratt thrashed out a flightplan?”
“An efficient flightplan,” the AI assured him. “And the early precursors of an event are beginning to show. The transspace drive is cycling for ignition.”
“How long till this event?” Jazinsky wondered.
“Estimating 30 minutes.” Lai’a paused. “I have dropped a comm beacon into a stable part of the driftway. Doctor Sherratt, Doctor Jazinsky, Colonel Rusch, you might be interested to examine data streaming to Tech 4. The next gate beyond the Orion Gate is intermittently visible. It is extremely distant and readings are faint, but useful information might be inferred. Doctor Teniko, if you wish, I can stream the same data to Nav 5.”
Comm 5 was the workstation where Teniko was hunched into a chair, hugging himself. “Do it,” he snarled. “Pardon me for two syllables.”
The data might have been fascinating but Marin could make nothing of it. He gathered by the tank with the rest of the transspace pilots, watching the graphics as the event began to grow. Travers, Queneau and Rodman – the navigation specialists – were transfixed, eager to watch the black hole pull and tease at the gravity wells of two supergiant stars until the e-space membrane began to ruck and twist, building toward the rupture in space-time. Vidal, Marin and Hubler – the pilots – were focused on the way the temporal currents fluctuated, bending and weaving around the growing event while the outfall of the Odyssey Tide seemed to froth and eddy around the shoals of the driftway.
The transspace drive was idling, Lai’a was on station keeping, only waiting for the Orion Gate to open, and as it did Marin could feel the phantom sensations in his hands, wrists, forearms, and a curious sense of weightlessness, as if he might be flying this. The thought hit him hard. I can do this. I could fly this with my own hands, own eyes and brain.
How often had he heard Vidal say the same words, in the early days when he must almost convince himself that he had been here, done this, before ever he tried to convince people like Jazinsky, Sherratt, Shapiro. They believed now – Marin believed. His belly felt the phantom lurch of momentary zero-gee as Lai’a acquired the freefall channel just off-center of the event, and beyond they could already see the stars of normal space.
Strange stars. The constellations were alien to every human eye, and the Resalq knew them only from the data returned by the Aenestra. Even Mark was lost for words as the transspace drive shut down and the conventional Weimann engines ramped up. Lai’a exited the Orion Drift without hesitation, and Marin watched a flatscreen, where the aftscan showed its departure angle. The gate was the twin of any Hellgate event and the stars ahead, which pooled in the navtank like swarming fireflies, were normal stars, identical to those of home.
The navtank load was based on the Aenestra data, but Lai’a was already surveying, amending, correcting. Rusch and Jazinsky murmured in surprise and delight as new information became available, but a chill had settled in Marin’s bones. He joined Travers and Vaurien and took a cup of steaming green tea as Vidal returned from the ’chef.
“You all right, Curt?” Vidal asked softly. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
“Maybe I did.” Marin wrapped his hands around the cup. “Am I the only one who’s looking at those stars and thinking, everything – everything we know, every Deep Sky world, every human and Resalq soul – is so far away, if something happened and we couldn’t get back into transspace, we’d be traveling at lunatic speeds for five years to get home. Am I the only one who feels a tad bit intimidated?”
Vaurien lifted a brow at him. “Lai’a, how was the transit?”
“Orion Gate transit was normal,” it reported. “The transspace drive is operating at 0.34% below optimum, which is well within acceptable parameters. Weimann engines are at peak performance. The navtank load is satisfactory; I am extending it at this time. Orion 521 is 5.8 light years distant – a K3 dwarf, comparatively cool and small. Information regarding its planetary system will be available shortly.”
“Which should put your mind at ease, Curtis,” Vaurien observed. “Lai’a, kick up to high-cruise, let’s make this quick.”
“I am already at high-cruise, Captain Vaurien,” Lai’a told him mildly. “Did you wish to place higher priority on speed? I can bring number 3 generator online for fifteen percent Weimann overdrive.”
“Within established safety parameters?” Vaurien asked shrewdly.
“You may option 10% Weimann overdrive within those parameters,” Lai’a allowed.
“Then, consider it optioned,” Vaurien said aridly. “Give me a buzz when you drop out insystem … Harrison, Jon, will you join us for lunch?”
“If you can eat, do it now,” Jazinsky added darkly. “I’ve a feeling you won’t be in the mood later.”
They headed out to the lounge but Marin hung back, watching the tank, mesmerized by it, till Travers asked quietly, “You okay, Curt?”
“Yes. I suppose. Just –” He gestured at the strange constellations. “You ever think about the early explorers? Magellan, Drake, Cook. They’d land on the far side of the planet in a flimsy little shell made of wood and rope and canvas, two years out from home and at the mercy of the wind, the sea. I think,” he said ruefully, “I’m feeling a little bit mortal just now.”
Vidal’s voice surprised them both. He had been working with a flatscreen, out of the main lights “You’d be weird if you didn’t,” he told Marin. “But you know what else I feel?” He came up to the tank, where its illumination threw macabre, distorted shadows around his face. “I feel alive,” he whispered, and then laughed shortly. “You ever notice, the closer to heaven you get, the more insecure you feel.”
He made a good point, and Marin shared the moment’s wry humor until Travers draped an arm over his shoulders. “Eat,” he advised. “If I’m right about what Jazinsky means, you won’t feel like it later.”
He was right. When Joss called them back to Operations the tale of woe was already streaming through the navtank. They h
ad all seen similar images in the Aenestra data, but the reality was a body blow. Lai’a cut a line into the system that would have approximated one of the original shipping lanes. It was marked by an old but still viable comm beacon dropped by the Resalq science team. The Aenestra itself had traveled this way, and had imaged the same devastation.
The star was orange rather than yellow, much cooler than the warm, bright suns of the new colonial homeworlds. The system was made more inviting only because the star was also large, for a dwarf, and its planets were numerous. The Aenestra spent a week here and recorded fourteen major worlds and three times as many moons, some of them as large as small worlds like Ulrand and Celeste, and one of them a shade under the size of Velcastra. But only the inner four planets were close enough to the star to be warm enough to permit life; and of them, two were too small to hold an atmosphere. One was a pocket-sized gas giant like Shikoku, orbiting on the outer fringe of the clement zone, where its warmth came mostly from its own compression-heated core and its moons were balls of blue ice.
Signs of Zunshu activity were everywhere. For once Dario, Tor and Leon were silent, haunted by vistas of devastation which could have been the Resalq worlds, a thousand years ago. Mark knew far too much about that era, and his voice was rasp.
“There’s no evidence to suggest this civilization ever got out of its home system – the Aenestra recorded no colonization in nearby systems, at any rate. These people certainly developed an excellent interplanetary drive, but even something like the Auriga engine was ahead of them when the Zunshu arrived. They were utterly helpless. The Aenestra cataloged six worlds in this system, as well as numerous moons, where mining colonies were established. On two of the closer worlds cities must have existed, since the Zunshu deployed what we came to call planet-wreckers. It’s possible one of the closer worlds might even have had an atmosphere before Zunshu intervention, but more likely the cities were domed or built underground, like those of Mars. And it’s entirely probable these worlds were employed as dockyards, ship-building facilities. Even research labs where the Auriga drive technology would have been developed, given another century.
