Echoes of Earth

by Sean Williams

  “If there is one.”

  “Why wouldn’t there be?” He seemed amused at the suggestion. “He comes here asking for ‘surviving representatives’ of UNESSPRO, claiming to possess some ‘urgent and sensitive information.’ If you and we together don’t constitute ‘the appropriate authorities,’ then who does?”

  As before, his open-palmed shrug of bemusement left Hatzis as cold as a quick dip on Pluto. They’d only come to her to get Alander talking; if he had nothing interesting to say, they’d brush him aside. They would no doubt keep his ship, of course, but they cared little about him. For all their smiles and courteous behavior, she wasn’t fooled for a moment.

  And just what did he have to say, anyway? She didn’t believe in parapsychology—as a depressingly large percentage of the human race still did—but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Alander’s reappearance in Sol System was an omen. A ghost rising out of a past long thought forgotten, he would be more difficult to ignore than mere electromagnetic transmissions from survey teams dozens of light-years away. He was here; he was tangible. And if she knew one thing, she knew that this was something her original would never allow to be kept a secret.

  2.1.3

  Arachne’s sensors were much sharper than anything Alander was used to. He could examine views in all electromagnetic frequencies with a high degree of resolution and no appreciable delay. He could see shadows on Pluto from the orbit of Mercury or examine shepherd moons in Saturn’s rings without changing location. When he had first seen the hole ship, there had been no evidence of instrumentation breaking its smooth, spherical surface. In fact, he was beginning to suspect that the instruments were completely separate from the ship. Some of the observations he had made since arriving in Sol could only have been possible with a very wide-based interferometer—kilometers wide—and that could only have been possible if the ship had sent out parts of itself to act as components in such an array.

  Either that, or the onboard AI was making it all up. But he seriously doubted that this was the case. What he had seen was too detailed and too bizarre to be a fabrication.

  “Okay.” He sighed as he watched the main screen from his position on the curved couch. “The hour is up. Let’s move. I feel too exposed here, especially while no one’s talking to us.”

  That someone would eventually talk to him, he had no doubt. He could see things moving through the giant structure—things much like spaceships with bulbous midsections and bright thruster emissions flaring from their tails. Someone had to be piloting them. Someone, or something.

  “Moving to preprogrammed coordinates now.” The voice of Arachne broke across his thoughts, and at the same moment the screen went blank as the hole ship performed the jump.

  Despite having spent two days sealed in its interior, he was still no closer to understanding how the ship was fueled or how it traveled. The trip from Upsilon Aquarius had taken twice as long as the one day that had apparently elapsed in the real universe, but it had been entirely uneventful—dangerously so, given his constant battle to remain focused. About the only thing he had learned in his time aboard the hole ship was that it had the facilities to comfortably accommodate four people almost indefinitely. The air always seemed fresh, and the AI had assured him that the food supply was virtually inexhaustible. There were also separate sleep areas. He had appropriated one and forced himself to sleep for at least part of the journey.

  The only break had been at 53 Aquarius, where he had stopped over briefly to look halfheartedly for Lucia and Chung-2. Arachne had taken just four hours to cross the ten light-years separating it from Adrasteia. The binary system itself had been an amazing sight. There were no planets, but that didn’t mean the system was empty. There were numerous asteroid belts twisting in loops around the two suns, stretching and bunching under the changeable forces of gravity acting on them. There were clouds of molecules and atoms, heated to great temperatures by magnetic fields and solar winds, glowing softly in numerous frequencies. And there were multitailed comets slowly evaporating between the stars.

  In short, there was a lot that a small ship like Chung-2 could have collided with while moving through the system at speed. But that didn’t mean she had died there. A system was a very large place to explore, even with the sensors of the hole ship at his disposal; any sort of wreckage would be hard to find against such an active background. And he was acutely aware of the many other systems she had flown through during her solo mission, and therefore the many other chances she would have had to find disaster.

  Only when the ship picked up a metallic object circling the main star in a highly energetic orbit did he find reason to keep his hopes alive. It was traveling so quickly that matching velocities was difficult, but he instructed the hole ship to do so anyway. When the interior airlock door opened, revealing the object, Alander knew that Lucia had managed to safely pass through the system.

  The object was a polished disk made of densely packed carbon, the sort of material that might easily be scooped up by a small probe, molecule by molecule, between the stars and woven by nanotech into something solid. One side was reflective, so the object would flash at a hypothetical observer as it rotated. On the other side was carved Lucia’s full name and date of birth, and a quote from Wordsworth: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.”

  Alive...

  “Peter, this is Caryl Hatzis.” The voice issued from the walls of the cockpit, startling him. An image appeared on the screen. They had just arrived at his chosen location—between the orbits of Earth and Venus—and were immediately receiving an audiovisual transmission. “We’ve picked up your beacon,” the message went on, “but don’t know what you want us to do beyond that. You’re going to have to give us a clue as to what you’d like us to do. Please, try not to be alarmed by what you see here. A lot has happened since you’ve been gone, Peter. But essentially we’re still the same old people.”

  He rose slowly to his feet. Caryl Hatzis? He had often wondered what might be waiting for him in Sol System—whether anyone in UNESSPRO, his original or Lucia, might still be alive—but he had never imagined that she would be the one welcoming him home. On first hearing her name, in fact, he had fleetingly considered the possibility that he had somehow ended up back at Upsilon Aquarius by mistake and had gone nowhere at all.

  But he quickly dismissed the notion. He had, after all, hailed Adrasteia with the ftl communicator when he had arrived at the edge of the system, to report what he had seen. Hatzis had replied by the same means, the transmission startlingly clear despite being dimmed slightly by distance. She had agreed that the only way he was going to find any answers was by making contact, but that, at the same time, he should be sure he never stayed in one spot too long, to reduce his vulnerability to an acceptable level. If he was captured or destroyed, he didn’t like to think what would happen to the information about the gifts he had brought with him—or to those he had left behind on Adrasteia.

  “Don’t be alarmed...”

  But was it her original talking to him now? She looked slightly different: more angular; long, dark hair tightly controlled, swept back from her forehead and tucked behind her ears; eyes glittering gray, like marbles. She looked shorter than he remembered, although that could have been the result of seeing her in the flesh for the first time. Her clipped voice was the same, as was her direct manner, and he sensed the same undercurrent of anxiety, as though things were threatening to spiral out of control around her. She’d had reason to sound that way on Adrasteia, and maybe she did here, too, but this Caryl Hatzis somehow managed to sound more assured despite it, as though the world might be going crazy but she knew who she was. That was new, and he found it oddly unsettling.

  Maybe it came from having almost a century’s extra experience behind her. This, he thought, was what the Caryl Hatzis he knew had the potential of becoming.

  “A lot has happened since you’ve been gone....”

  “Are we in the clear, Arachne?” When they had be
en positioned at their first broadcast point, the AI had warned him of a needle-shaped probe angling toward them. This time it had reported nothing untoward. Still, he needed all the reassurance he could get.

  “The space in our immediate vicinity is clear,” the ship told him, confirming what the screen said. Many of the instruments still meant nothing to him, but he was gradually coming to accept that. There would be time to learn later, he hoped. “We can relocate whenever you are ready.”

  “If they took a potshot at us,” he said, “could we actually defend ourselves?”

  “That would depend on what sort of weapon they used,” said the AI. “However, from the technology that is evident here, it is highly unlikely that anything they fired upon us would cause permanent damage.”

  “Really?” This surprised him. Sol System had only seven planets left. If whatever had destroyed the missing two was no threat to Arachne, then that said a lot about the ship’s defense systems.

  “You are physically safe within the hole ship, if that is what concerns you.”

  “What about attacks that aren’t necessarily physical? Like a virus, for example. Would it be possible for them to infiltrate your system?”

  “All transmissions are closely monitored. I would not allow anything to intrude that might harm me.”

  He nodded, satisfied, at least for now, that to open a line of communication would be safe. “Okay, then. I’d like to reply.”

  “What message would you like to send?”

  He pondered this for a long moment, eyes on the floor rather than the screen. Hatzis hadn’t asked where he’d come from, and that had surprised him. Had he been in her shoes, that would have been one of the first things he’d want to know. Maybe she was trying not to sound too curious. But why not?

  “Hello, Caryl,” he said, carefully considering his words before he spoke. “A century is a long time to be away, but I haven’t come here to reminisce on old times. I need to talk to someone in charge, in a secure forum. I have information that will change everything; this ship is just a teaser. If you want to hear the rest, let me know how we can talk privately. I’m not going to broadcast it across the system so anyone can hear. First I want to know who I’m talking to and why I’m talking to them. So please, don’t try to palm me off on some underling. If you do, I’ll turn around and leave, no questions asked. I simply haven’t got time for games.”

  Again he paused, just for a second. “I’m not threatening you, Caryl. I just want you to take me seriously. You might think my actions overly dramatic, even paranoid, but I have every cause to be. We know all about Cleo Samson. Tell the bastards in UNESSPRO that if they won’t listen to you.”

  He waited a few moments, wondering whether or not to add anything more. In the end he decided against it.

  “Arachne, end the transmission.”

  He sank back into the couch, rubbing his hands over his bald scalp, hoping he hadn’t overplayed his hand. He didn’t really have much with which to bargain: a vague promise, a hint or two, a willingness to communicate openly under the right circumstances. It wouldn’t surprise him if they turned him down.

  “Peter, thanks for replying so promptly.”

  He jumped at the sound of Hatzis’s voice; he hadn’t expected a reply so quickly.

  “First of all,” said the image from the screen, “I want you to know that you’re perfectly safe. You have no enemies here. Everyone simply wants to know what it is you have to tell us. How you wish to go about telling us is entirely up to you. We have no physical headquarters we can direct you to. We don’t even know if a physical meeting is what you require. Again, we need more details. Whatever it is you need, we will do our best to accommodate you.”

  “I appreciate that,” he said, although to himself he thought, But I’m not convinced yet. “Tell me, though, is there anyone else there I might remember?”

  The reply came swiftly. “No, Peter. There is no one else from the survey program but me.” She hesitated, as if uncertain what to say. “All the rest have... gone.”

  Her face vanished again, leaving him alone with the disquieting thought: No one else... It shouldn’t have bothered him, given the amount of time that had passed since his departure. He shouldn’t have been surprised by the revelation that none of the people he had once known existed anymore. Yet, strangely, it did trouble him.

  No one else...

  He tried to shake free of the thought, focusing instead on what this Hatzis had just told him. Interestingly, she had made no mention of Cleo Samson and the way she had been manipulated to serve the purposes of UNESSPRO. There was no mention of who was in power, or what sort of government currently existed in the system. He knew better than to assume that any of the old alliances he had been familiar with would remain a hundred years after he had left. The rapid power swings at the beginning of the twenty-first century had taught him better than anything not to take a status quo for granted. South Africans could have been in charge, or New Zealanders, assuming either place still existed, of course.

  And there was also no explanation of how she was managing to reply so quickly, either. He had thought it would take much longer.

  “Where are you, Caryl?” he asked.

  “I am registering an energy emission,” said the AI, as soon as the message had left. “It is distant but approaching rapidly.”

  “What sort of energy emission?”

  “It bears similarities to a number of simple high-acceleration drive systems.”

  “How high?”

  “In excess of two hundred of your gravities.”

  He swallowed nervously. “Nothing living could be in something like that. It must be—”

  Hatzis’s image reappeared. “I don’t want you to be alarmed, Peter,” she said, “but I’m actually closer than you probably realize, and getting closer every second. But trust me, I am not attacking you, okay? I don’t know whether you can see me yet, but I’m attaching a complete description of the craft and the course I’m following. It’s easier for us to communicate this way; soon we’ll be able to talk without delays.”

  That was it for that message. The hole ship confirmed that the attached data matched the trajectory and acceleration of the approaching object. They also confirmed that delay was shrinking between their exchanges. How she could possibly survive in something decelerating so rapidly was beyond him, but, warily confident that he could relocate the hole ship if Hatzis tried anything funny, he agreed to stay put while she approached.

  “Your reassurances are all well and good,” he told her. “But I still don’t like it. I feel like a nail waiting for the hammer.”

  “How do you think we feel?” she replied a moment later. “We can’t even see you coming. You could be inside the Frame and out again before we’d even noticed.”

  “The Frame?” he repeated. “You mean that... structure?”

  There was a long pause—longer than he would have expected. “Wait until we’re closer, Peter. The chances of you misunderstanding are great enough as they are, without a communication lag screwing things up even more.”

  That he could understand all too well. The hole ship had pinned down the source of the approaching energy emissions, revealing it to be a fat ovoid barely two meters long and a meter thick, exactly matching the schematics Hatzis sent. A dense magnetic field surrounded it, whipping the solar wind into a bright halo. It had a remote similarity to one of the spindles back on Adrasteia, only much reduced in scale. That, he knew, had to be a coincidence.

  No one else...

  The object came to a relative halt barely 100,000 kilometers away. Her image had never left the screen and still appeared to be standing against an infinite, black background, only now, without the time lag, her reactions were more natural. And she certainly didn’t look like she’d just endured hundreds of g’s deceleration.

  “Are you really in that thing, or are you an engram like the one I left behind?” He instructed the ship’s AI to transmit a picture of him
self along with the message this time.

  “Neither, actually.” She sounded slightly annoyed, although he couldn’t imagine what he’d said to provoke such a response. “It’s very difficult to explain.”

  “Listen, I told you I want to know who I am dealing with,” he said. “And that starts with knowing what you are.”

  She sighed. “Very well. I am part of the distributed intelligence who uses as a reference identity the persona you know as Caryl Hatzis.”

  He blinked a couple of times in confusion; it hadn’t been the kind of answer he’d been expecting. “Distributed in what sense?”

  “In the sense that who I am is spread out across numerous points of view, each capable of functioning independently as intelligent beings.”

  “Sort of like me?” he said, struggling with what she was saying.

  “Broadly speaking, yes,” she said. “Except engrams are single entities created, if you will, from a template, and androids such as the one you inhabit were once common containers for such templates. But we combine to create a larger being. I am able to spread my awareness across my entire being. The latter would be difficult for you to communicate with, however, which is why I have sent this particular pov to talk to you on my behalf.”

  “So she speaks for you? Is that it?” He was still having difficulty with the concept, but he was slowly coming to terms with it.

  “She is me, Peter,” she said patiently. “And I am her. I speak for myself in the same way that your brain speaks for your liver, if you like—except that I have many such brains, and the thing that stands above them is something very different.” She looked exasperated for a moment, as if wanting to describe something for which there were no words. “I told you: it’s difficult to explain.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I think I understand. If I talk to you, now, the whole of you is hearing, right?”