Sunborn

by Jeffrey Carver

  It occurred to Julie that the liftoff of this little shuttle was like the closing of a knife blade, neatly dividing her life; she was leaving Triton, probably forever. She didn’t know why this moment should feel so singularly irrevocable. But at least she was on her way back to where the sun could warm her face; she sometimes forgot how much she missed the sun. She wondered if being out here in perpetual night led to skewed ways of thinking.

  She recalled Georgia’s final words as they’d hugged at the airlock. “Don’t be a stranger. Stay in touch, okay?”

  She’d murmured back a feeble reassurance: Of course I will. I’ll let you know everything that happens. Look for my holos.

  But the truth was, she already felt like a stranger. Not to Georgia, but to herself. She felt, as she set out with this unknown alien power, as if she were taking the first steps down a strange and slippery slope.

  Don’t be a stranger...

  She was traveling with a most remarkable stranger. Gazing out the window at the curving horizon of the majestic blue planet that dominated the Triton sky, she wondered if the translator, in its crate, was aware of Neptune, or of the greater solar system around them.

  She wondered what the translator was thinking right now.

  What it was planning.

  *

  Julie had little time to enjoy the change of pace of the Triton Orbital Station and take in the views from its observation ports. From the moment of docking in orbit, she was busy overseeing the moving and securing of the translator in the hold of the ship that would take them to Earth. The Park Avenue was a modest-sized interplanetary transport, but it was so much larger than anything that ever descended to Triton’s surface that it seemed like a luxury liner. On the outside, it was shaped like something an imaginative child might have assembled from moldable silver play pieces. On the inside, it had cabins and common space and corridors, and most of all, a decent-sized cargo hold.

  She was in the corridor outside the hold now, gripping the handrail to keep from floating away, as she watched the ship’s crew move pallets around and fiddle with the securing of the translator’s crate.

  “Is everything satisfactory, Ms. Stone?”

  Julie pushed back from the window and rotated to face the navy-blue-uniformed officer who had spoken: Lieutenant Henry Cohn, if she remembered correctly. “Hard to say,” she said. “Will the compartment be pressurized in time for me to check on the translator before we leave orbit?” The loading had taken much longer than she’d expected.

  Lieutenant Cohn shook his head. “I’m afraid not. We’re on a tight schedule. We’ll be calling all the passengers to their cabins for departure in just a few minutes.” He peered at her curiously for a moment. “May I ask—are you in contact with the translator now?”

  Julie shook her head and felt her body twisting slightly with the movement. She was still getting used to zero gee. “It’s not like that. I have to be a lot closer—and it has to make the contact. I’m not even sure what it’s aware of through this wall.”

  “Is it important that you make contact before we depart?” Cohn asked.

  Julie shrugged. Truthfully, she had no idea. But if the translator didn’t like the way it was being secured aboard the ship, she’d rather know sooner than later. The spacesuited workers were now clamping its crate to large mounting brackets on the floor of the cargo bay where a space had been reserved for it. If it had any special requirements, she didn’t know about them.

  *Not necessary.*

  She started at the voice in her head. The stones had been silent since before her departure from the mining base.

  *The arrangement is satisfactory, as long as there is access in flight.*

  Julie cleared her throat and said to the officer, “As long as I can have access once we’re under way...”

  “As soon as we’re clear of orbit, and under steady boost,” Cohn assured her. “With the permission of Dr. Lamarr, of course. He has final authority over everything having to do with the translator.”

  Of course he does, Julie thought with a sigh. Or thinks he does. She forced a smile. “Thank you.”

  *

  She finally went to find her berth. Though the ship was large compared to anything local, room was still at a premium. Her cabin was a third the size of her compartment on Triton station, and it was not hers alone. As she was sorting through her bags, a young woman floated in the doorway and nearly landed on top of her. The energetic-looking brunette reminded Julie of herself, a few years ago.

  “Whoa,” the woman said, pulling herself to a stop. “Hi. I’m Arlene—your roommate. You’re Julie Stone.”

  “That’s right.” Shaking hands, Julie tried to back into one end of the compartment to make room. “Arlene, you said? What department are you in?”

  “Language analysis.” Arlene rotated in midair and pointed to the left-hand row of drawers in the built-in cabinet. “Those are yours. I already put my things in the other side.”

  “Ah. Thanks.”

  “I came in from Earth on the Park Ave. with Dr. Lamarr. I’ve been working here in orbit, studying the recordings of your interactions with the translator.” Arlene hooked her wrist into a restraint to stay out of Julie’s way. The zero-gee trick seemed perfectly natural to the woman, as though she were resting in an easy chair. “It’s been absolutely fascinating—the recordings, I mean. I have a hundred questions for you.”

  Julie felt herself stiffening, as the meaning of Arlene’s words sank in. “You’ve been...studying...”

  “All the holos, all the sound recordings.” Arlene had a look of excitement on her face, and a complete absence of guile. “I’ve been analyzing for patterns of various sorts, and trying to correlate your descriptions of what you’ve heard and felt with all the readings we have on your biometrics—breath rate, synaptic rate, various kinds of brainwave functions—everything we’ve recorded.”

  Julie felt her head spinning. “Which you got—?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “How did you get all of that data?”

  Arlene looked puzzled. “Well, it was all recorded from the sensors in your suit when you communicated with the translator. You know about that, right?”

  Julie shook her head. “Brainwave sensors? There were no brainwave recorders in my suit that I know of.”

  “Um...they were put in after your first encounter, when you lost consciousness.” A frown grew on Arlene’s face. “You didn’t know?” Obviously Julie’s dismay was showing, because Arlene winced. “Oh dear. They must have forgotten to tell you.” She bit her lip in embarrassment. “Or maybe they didn’t want to make you self-conscious and—you know—skew the readings.”

  “Yes, I suppose that must have been it.” Julie cleared her throat noisily. “So—did you learn anything interesting about me—or the translator?”

  Arlene shrugged. “Nothing definitive. But there’s a lot I want to get your viewpoint on. You know, having just the biometric readings leaves it all pretty abstract and—cold, I guess.”

  “I imagine it would, yes,” Julie said, trying not to feel cold herself, as she envisioned a stranger poring in secret over her biometric readings. What embarrassing thoughts or urges had she had while hooked up to Lamarr’s spy sensors?

  Arlene’s frown deepened. “I get the feeling I’ve just made you really uncomfortable.”

  “No, it’s fine.” The lie was obviously transparent. “Really.” She was no more convincing the second time.

  “I’m sorry,” Arlene said. “I never meant to pry. I was just sitting in a room at Triton Orbital, analyzing the information they gave me. I never imagined they’d take readings without telling you.”

  I’m sure you didn’t. Julie immediately felt guilty for the thought. Okay, you probably didn’t. Why would they tell you? “Listen, I’d better get my stuff stowed for departure.”

  “Okay,” said Arlene. “I have to go check on something, real quick. I’ll be right back.”

  As Arlene disappeared,
Julie took stock of storage in the cabin. It was pretty tight, but since she was going to be living here for several months, she’d better settle in as best she could. She quickly unpacked her most comfortable clothes and crammed them into the little built-in drawers, and stowed her toiletries, books, and other personal items into a small set of closable cubbies. She had to chase a few items that began to float away across the room. She’d forgotten the little tricks of weightlessness she’d learned on the trip out. As she turned to close her duffel, which was still half full, she saw a message scrolling on the comm panel:

  “Welcome to the MINEXFO shuttle Park Avenue. Please click the acknowledgment icon beside your name to notify our staff when you have stowed your belongings and are ready for departure. All luggage items should be stowed in the under-bunk compartments.”

  Julie wrestled her duffel into the tight compartment under her bunk, then turned and clicked the acknowledgment key.

  “Thank you,” said a male voice from the panel. “Departure will be in nine minutes. For your safety, regulations require that you strap yourself into your bunk for ignition and initial acceleration. Observe the signs on the walls to determine the correct ship-vertical attitude. Acceleration will reach one-fourth gee approximately ten seconds after ignition. Please remain in your bunk until the restraints sign has gone out, and use caution in moving about until you have adapted to the new gravitational conditions. For your own safety, all passengers will be monitored by remote cam for the first half hour of flight. If you have any questions, press the call button without delay.”

  So don’t pick your nose or scratch in any embarrassing places...

  *

  Arlene returned about thirty seconds before the first warning horn. She and Julie strapped in, Arlene on the bottom bunk, Julie on the top. They talked little, except for Arlene’s voicing a wish for windows so they could watch the departure. Julie, preoccupied by other thoughts, didn’t answer.

  When the departure boost finally came, it seemed almost anticlimactic—a gentle pressure pushing her back into the memory-foam of the bunk. Julie couldn’t wait to get up and move around. The one-quarter Earth gravity produced by the ship’s acceleration made her feel heavy, after the one-thirteenth gee of Triton, but it was mild compared to her exercise periods on the centrifuge track. It was just going to last a little longer—something close to this all the way to Earth.

  When the bunk light went out at last, she cautiously climbed down. She felt an enormous and unaccountable sense of relief, being under way at last. Arlene pulled herself up from her lower bunk, but looked more wobbly and disoriented than Julie. “I’ve been in zero gee too long,” she confessed.

  “Better take it easy, then,” Julie advised. “Are you going to be okay? I need to go see someone, but I won’t leave if—”

  “No, no—I’m fine,” Arlene said in a tremulous voice. “But I think I’m going to lie here a few more minutes. Go ahead, I’ll be all right.”

  “Okay.” Julie closed the door behind her and strode down the passageway that a few minutes ago she had floated through. She searched until she found a small work area just aft of the bridge. “Lieutenant Cohn?”

  The officer looked up with a grin. “Call me Henry. I’ll be right with you, as soon as I check in with all the passengers and make sure everyone’s all right. Some people get off to a queasy start.”

  “I think my roommate’s one of them,” Julie said. There was an outside window nearby, so she went over and peered out at the curving twilight blue horizon of Neptune, which had not yet diminished at all.

  “Pretty sight, isn’t it?” Cohn said a minute later.

  “Hard to believe I’m leaving it behind. It feels like a natural part of the sky.”

  “I guess I haven’t been here long enough for that. What can I do for you, Ms. Stone?”

  “Julie. I’d like to check on the translator.”

  “Ah yes. Have you gotten permission from Dr. Lamarr?”

  “Oh, hell.” Could it be she didn’t want to ask Dr. Lamarr?

  Cohn grinned. “Shall I call him for you?”

  “Yes, please,” she muttered. Pressing her lips together, she stared out the window again until Cohn returned from his console.

  “He’ll meet us at the cargo deck. Follow me?”

  She pushed back from the window at once.

  Lamarr beat them to the cargo deck. He was standing outside at the observation port, giving orders through the intercom. The translator’s corner of the cargo area had not been kept as isolated as promised, and a number of standard shipping containers, apparently secured at the last minute, blocked access to the much larger crate holding the translator. After a moment, Lamarr noticed Julie. “Miss Stone. Are you ready to look in on our charge?”

  Nodding, Julie surveyed the scene. “It looks like we have to do some rearranging.”

  That provoked a jerk of the head from Lamarr toward the crewmen inside the compartment. “They were supposed to keep that area clear.”

  A crewman in the passageway explained, “Departure time was moved up, and we were informed we had exactly one hour to get everything secured. We could have kept that area clear, if we’d been given a little more time.”

  Lamarr still looked irritated. “How long will it take to move that stuff out of the way?”

  The crewman shrugged. “We need an hour or two to find a place to secure everything else. Are you planning to open up the artifact container?”

  Lamarr turned to Julie. “What do you need, to make contact? Do we have to open it? It might be safer to leave it closed.”

  “I won’t know until I try,” Julie answered. “But if you want a more open communication—if you want it, for example, to recognize you and respond to your questions—”

  “That is certainly a goal.”

  “Then I think we should remove at least the front of the crate, so it can see us.” If it even has vision. I wonder how it actually sees.

  Lamarr turned to the crewman. “You heard her. We want to open the crate. The sooner the better.”

  The crewman’s eyebrows twitched. “We’ve got a long trip ahead of us, Dr. Lamarr.”

  “Yes,” Lamarr answered. “And a great deal of work to do.”

  The crewman shrugged and turned away. Lamarr glanced at Julie and Lieutenant Cohn. “That’s settled, then. Officer Cohn, I’ll call you if we need you again. Miss Stone, if you will come with me, we must discuss what you will do when you reestablish contact. What you will say, and so forth.”

  What I will say? Julie thought, trying to imagine what instructions Lamarr might issue. Or what I won’t say.

  Lamarr had never been present for her visits with the translator. She had heard, however, that he had been among those who had gone to see the artifact last night. Reportedly, it had ignored his attempts to communicate.

  This could be interesting.

  *

  “Dr. Lamarr, you’re asking me to promise things that are beyond my control.” Rocking forward on the crate she’d found to sit on, Julie spread her hands in exasperation.

  “I’m not asking you to promise. I’m asking you to do what it takes to establish communication. Is it unreasonable to ask that you push a little bit?”

  Was it? The translator would decide for itself how to respond to Lamarr. Her own feelings, she supposed, were irrelevant. She shrugged and changed the subject. “Were you ever going to tell me that you’d bugged my spacesuit with all kinds of biosensors, back on Triton? I just learned about it, from my roommate.”

  Lamarr’s gaze met hers for a moment, then moved away dismissively. “There were experimental considerations during that phase. It’s nothing for you to be concerned about.”

  She suppressed a snort.

  His gaze darkened very slightly. “I understand your discomfort. But let me caution you, Ms. Stone, not to fall into the trap of thinking of this artifact as yours. It may have chosen you as its medium of communication for now, but that does not make you its
only keeper.”

  Julie bit back the first reply that came to mind and said carefully, “I am aware of that. But it’s part of my responsibility to protect the translator to the extent I can, while I work at establishing communication.”

  “Of course,” Lamarr said, “though the translator seems capable of protecting itself.” Julie felt herself redden as he continued, “Ms. Stone, you do not hold me, or MINEXFO, in particularly high esteem—I know that. You think we’re in this just for the money, or the power. You think we want to exploit the translator for our own gain.”

  With an effort of will, Julie kept a neutral expression.

  “Well, I don’t deny that we hope to gain from our position regarding the artifact. As I’ve said, we would not have come three billion miles to Triton if we hadn’t hoped to find a profit.” Lamarr paused, tapping his pen on a notepad. “We haven’t yet made a profit, you know, in spite of the interesting metals we’ve mined. And now we have the potential for a return on all of those trillions of dollars that were spent by investors and taxpayers, building an outpost at the edge of the solar system.”

  Julie answered as evenly as she could. “I understand the need for profit. I’m not opposed to profit.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that.”

  “But—” she paused “—profit isn’t the only thing that matters, either.”

  “No, it’s not. This...artifact...could be of significant benefit to all of mankind.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Or, to view it from the other extreme, it could pose a significant threat.”

  Julie flushed. It already saved the Earth once. What more can it do to prove itself?

  “Now, I don’t really believe that,” Lamarr continued. “If we thought it posed a threat, we wouldn’t be taking it anywhere near Earth.”

  She relaxed slightly.

  “But I say this to point out that since we don’t know what the end result of its presence is going to be, someone needs to be in charge of it. And that someone—”