Star Binder

by Robert Appleton

  “Think of the journey of a sperm-whale. Most of its passage is under the ocean's surface, right? Invisible and untouchable to the world above. But it has to breach the surface at regular intervals to breathe, or in the case of the Star Binder, to give you a gravitational kick, or jump. It’s a self-contained tunnel with the gravitational, electromagnetic and nuclear forces all in perfect balance. But it needs a constant influx of gravitational energy to sustain its integrity.

  “The way it does this is in the name itself: Star Binder. It runs through stars, feeding off their gravity, the way a sperm-whale encounters Earth’s atmosphere whenever it comes up for air. That’s the point at which the kick occurs. It can jump you to the next star, or a hundred stars away, or even further, depending on your velocity. But when you're not jumping, you're still moving through space-time, so between the kicks is when the time dilation effect takes its toll. One of those kicks on its own is instantaneous. Even a few in a row won't cost you much time. But there's always a slight lag between them. Over the course of thousands, millions of stars, you can see how those gaps will accumulate and how time draws out, like it did for me. I only experienced a couple of years of travel, but the cumulative effect of all those lags and kicks had a strange effect. It was as though the lags were invisible party streamers snagged along the way. The more I picked up, the more they clogged the works, and the more of a ‘dragging’ effect they had. If any of you become physicists, you might be able to explain it to me someday. In any event, I lost over a century to the Binder. But without it, the price for the round trip would have been tens of thousands of years.”

  While he shares another amusing aside with Hendron, I take the opportunity to see how my pals are coping with all this. Without exception they gaze back at me, startled, a little worried, their eyes ablaze with excitement. That must be why they call us buggos—we can’t help but bug out when we hear the truth about this place.

  “O’see Hendron says I’m getting way ahead of myself,” continues Thorpe-Campbell. “So I’ll break it down for you, nice and simple. Our nearest Binder station is Checkpoint Alpha. It’s our first complete colony along the Binder network, and you’ll be calling it home for the next few years. It’s manned mostly by Hex grads, along with civilian experts in various fields, and a contingent of ISPA officers for security. I have to stress this is not a military operation. Checkpoint Alpha is a launching pad for the next phase of human exploration. But it’s also to ensure the survival of our species.

  “Like the O’see said, we’ve lost this war. Now, that could go one of two ways. They keep us alive but take our resources. Not good. Or they decide we’re too volatile to keep around, so they wipe us out. Definitely not good. The only way we survive on our own terms, then, is to find new homes, as far away as we can, without them knowing. The Sheikers have been sniffing around Mars for years. They suspect we have something important here, but they don’t know what. Maybe a portal. A means of teleportation. A doomsday device.

  “They almost had me in Cydonia Sights. If it weren’t for Trillion and Balakirev, they might have tortured that information out of me. This whole operation might have been compromised. And subsequently it has, because those Sheikers waiting for you in the canyon were indirectly fed intel from inside the Initiative. Someone in this facility was sending classified information to the rebels on Lohengrin’s homeworld, Rhea. They were trying to arrange his abduction. And we think that, unbeknownst to this traitor in our midst, the rebels on Rhea were in league with a Sheiker faction. So what started out as a dirty political move quickly became a war-changing opportunity for the Sheikers.

  “We’re lucky they only sent one ship into the canyon. Our incoming communications were nobbled—by the same traitor, who still thought she was doing it for the Rhea rebels—so we didn’t get your shuttle’s mayday call, we couldn’t watch you in the canyon via sat net. The O’see and I were about to pull the plug and come rescue you when the Finagler invasion hit, full-on, coordinated across four IC systems, including the Core. It was like they timed it all to make sure they got hold of Lohengrin. If our sat net hadn’t repelled most of them, we’re pretty sure they’d have gone straight for the canyon. And from there, straight to Rhea, demanding Queen Mircalla’s surrender. You guys blocked a potential check-mate of the war. We’ll never forget that.

  “Now, we know who the traitor was and we’ve dealt with her. But we can’t be certain what else she told them, about the Hex for example. As far as we could tell she still believed in what we’re doing here; her beef was with Queen Mircalla, not the Initiative. She came from Rhea.”

  Again Hendron whispers to him. This time neither of them so much as twitches a smile. Despite their promise of no more secrets, I get the impression she’s reminding him to tread lightly—buggos bug out easily, doesn’t he know—there are some details we don’t need to know—not yet.

  “To come full circle, or rather full hexagon, on this first phase of your training,” he says, “I owe you an explanation of the Hex itself. I can confirm your theories about the arena you’re standing in. Actually, it was Trillion who got closest to the truth. He hit on the similarities between these gigs and some of the attractions in the Big Red. That’s exactly right. We leased the tech patents to the owners of that theme park, got a fortune for them. That money helped build this facility and fund the completion of Alpha. This was all while I was off exploring the Star Binder, of course, about half a century ago.

  “When I first discovered this site, quite by accident, my rock-climbing team and I couldn’t figure it out. We knew it had to be alien, buried so far under the surface. But the shape of this shaft was pretty much as you see it now, a giant hexagonal hollow inside the ice. The gigs were under a layer of ice, but it was fresh, transparent. That told us: a) There was heat involved, either constant or at regular enough intervals to thaw the ice from time to time and prevent it building up. And b) The gigs had been left here for a reason, otherwise why would they keep heating up?

  “I brought scientists back with me: geologists, physicists, palaeontologists. They found out the shaft roof wasn’t a roof at all, it was a mind-boggling energy source with a very thin, invisible shield. The final clue came when we flew a probe up to take measurements. When it breached the shield it overloaded and fell. The entire shaft came alive with a prickly heat.

  “Remember what happened in here when the alarm went off and the lights went out? All electronic equipment shut down, right? That was because we were breaching the shield, we were sending a pod up into the Binder. The gigs lit up with that crackling red energy, just like that time when all this was just an ice cave. That same red energy thawed the fresh ice layer and turned all this into a lagoon. The gigs ended up underwater.”

  A self-conscious feeling crawls up and down my back, then burns my cheeks. He's just lied to cover for me. Those first six times the alarm went off and the lights went out, it wasn't a “pod” going up into the Binder. It was me! Somehow, the dragonfly had given me access. I'd made some kind of journey through the Binder. But to where? How far? The time dilation effect now made a little more sense; I'd lost hours at a time on my own travels.

  The first chance I get, I'm going to have to tell him all about it. If he doesn't already know.

  “So what are they—the gigs?” Sarazzin calls out.

  “I was just getting to that. The best we can figure it...you’re in a playground,” he tells us. “A small amusement park for alien travellers. Think about it. You’ve journeyed over incredible distances, trapped inside your transport, your supplies might be running low, you might need to purge your waste tanks before the ship really starts to stink. You may just need to stretch your legs, take on some water, or amuse the young ones for a bit. What’s the ideal solution? A rest area. A pit-stop. A skyway service station. A little fun and recreation for the whole family.

  “We tend to think of aliens as either big insects or emotionless Brainiacs. The Finaglers are a bit of both, right? Serious as a hea
rt-attack. They’re also scum to boot. But in my experience the regular folks in most alien species are just like us. They want the simple pleasures. Companionship. Entertainment. I once traded my VRI of The Empire Strikes Back for an alien’s home brew on a desert moon. He was a weird creature, but he had amazing comic timing, like perfect comic timing. For some reason his people really dug the music of that film. It fascinated them. For all I know, it inspired them to start their own evil galactic empire, and Darth Vader’s music became their anthem. But seriously, the way they responded to that—it made me realise, we probably have more in common with alien species that it might first appear. I want you to remember that. The gigs are more than just learning tools. They’re a symbol of goodwill. Millions of years ago, when Mars was more temperate and there wasn’t thick ice here, this might have been a picnic area for all kinds of interstellar holidaymakers on their way to...wherever. Whoever built it probably had something like that in mind—to provide a respite for beings he’d never get to meet, beings that looked nothing like him, didn’t speak his language.

  “Guys, the Star Binder is our chance to start over as a species. I know it’s a lot to lay on you, but we think the ten of you have what it takes to spearhead the next generation of explorers and settlers. The Advance and Priority Pods. You’re the last graduates from the Hex. You’re also the only ones who’ve encountered the war directly. So learn from the older grads, but don’t forget you can teach them a thing or two yourselves. The other buggos have already made the trip. This is the last ever journey out from the Hex. O’see Hendron and I will accompany you to Alpha—the nearest Binder station—then we’ll leave you in the hands of your new Pod Chiefs, whoever they are. Any questions?”

  Several hands go up at once, mine included.

  “Thought so.” Thorpe-Campbell limbers up, as though he’s getting ready for one of his famous orbital runs. “Then we’ll have lots to talk about on the trip, won’t we?”

  Hendron fetches a length of rope from the corridor outside, ties it to the railing and lets it dangle, like I used to. Then she snaps me a salute. “Like he said, you guys can teach us a thing or two,” she says, and climbs down the rope, as nimble as someone half her age.

  It makes me feel proud, important. A part of what lies ahead.

  Thorpe-Campbell climbs down after her but makes a bit of a hash of it. He’s going too fast, trying to show off, and he loses his footing and winds up dropping the last five feet. He almost loses his balance, but the O’see steadies him in time.

  “Right, one hundred laps of the Hex,” he announces. “Whoever beats O’see Hendron gets a VIP seat on the pod. Whoever beats me gets a million credits.” And he takes off at top speed...

  Hendron legs him up before he gets away. He goes down in a tangle. She skips round him, laughing her butt off as we all leave him in the dust, the greatest runner who ever lived.

  My mind’s reeling, and I want time to take it all in, to get to grips with everything I’ve just heard. But Thorpe-Campbell and Hendron have decided not to give us that time. They don’t want us brooding over the war, fretting over having to leave our home worlds behind. They want us to feel our feet on the ground, to focus on a simple goal. They want to run the fear and anxiety out of us. And they want us to feel in control of our own destinies.

  A hundred laps to go, winner takes all. We barge, trip, cheat, bully. It’s funny and serious and exciting and scary all at the same time. We’re buggos of all ages. We get to compete in the Hex one last time.

  CHAPTER 21

  Umbilical

  The dark sanctum from my extra-curricular adventures is actually the roof of the hub shaft. It's also the launch platform for pods entering the Star Binder. Seeing it fully lit for the first time, it’s even bigger than I thought. The two halves of the platform slot together like iron jaws in front of us, and I get a real sense of the scale of this project. Three huge storage depots contain thousands of crates apiece. All kinds of heavy machinery, including cranes and power loaders and what appear to be the Pipe Devils’ kick-ass big cousins, have simply been left, dotted around the cave’s perimeter. It looks like a gigantic abandoned building site inside the polar ice.

  Apparently the elevators have been shut down. The facility is almost empty now. Just a handful of trusty personnel, who won’t be making the trip with us, are busy securing the Hex for its long, cold retirement. Only one access route will be left open and booby-trapped. If any unauthorized visitor tries to gain entry, the entire facility will self-destruct. The other remaining tunnel will be collapsed once the final man or woman leaves, pretty much entombing this amazing place for good.

  It’s freezing in here, even with our glowsuits, so O’see Hendron gives us fleece coats to wear. She also hands out personalized dog-tags, which she says are temporary until we receive our official Alpha ink. I’m going to see if I can hold onto my tag, though. It’s kinda cool.

  TRILLION, JAMES 38117

  PRIORITY POD TRAINEE C-A

  GRAVITY RES. 0.38

  BLOOD TYPE B POSITIVE

  Someone drives a strange-looking eight-wheel launcher-loader vehicle out of one of the storage depots. It resembles a mobile missile launcher, but the large object it’s carrying definitely isn’t a missile. Picture a really thick drill-bit about the size of a train carriage. Paint it copper. Make it hollow. Now put windows in it, about a dozen all the way along, on either side. Finally, fix a nose ablator—a shield to divert heat and friction—to either end. You have yourself a pod.

  The launcher positions itself dead centre on the platform. As it lowers the pod to a horizontal position for us to enter, I turn to Thorpe-Campbell. “Not exactly the Bluebird,” I say, referring to his legendary RAM racer, which was sleek and had personality and frankly dripped awesomeness. This is a big tool by comparison.

  “She’s everything she needs to be,” he replies. “I'll explain how she works another time.” He puts his arm over my shoulder and leads me toward the retractable steps. “We’ve got other things to talk about first.”

  “Like what, sir?”

  “You know very well what. Those extra-curricular high-jinks didn't exactly go unnoticed, you know. Say, have you seen any dragonflies around these parts lately?”

  “I wasn't sure how much you knew,” I reply, turning white.

  “We monitored the dragonfly from the first moment it left the Binder, a few months before you even arrived here. Our intelligence suggested it was benign, that it was looking for something. But we couldn't figure out what. It came and went several times. Whenever we tried to make contact, it would vanish.”

  “Sir, what is it?”

  “Maybe some kind of a probe. We're not entirely sure, but it appears to have been bio-engineered.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “It looks like a dragonfly until you get close,” he explains, “then you see that it's missing all the detail, all the biological complexity.”

  “It's a machine?”

  “Sort of. But not with wheels and gears and all the crude components we might use. It's a lot more subtle than that. We're not sure how it works exactly because, like I said, it shies away whenever we try to make contact. But it kept returning to your quarters, late at night, when it thought no one was watching. It seemed to latch itself onto you. The O'see and I didn't like it, but the Council decided it was worth investigating. Those lucid dreams you had, they were—”

  “Wait a minute! How did you know about my dreams? Have you been reading my mind all this time?”

  He laughs, ruffles my hair. “Now don't get too paranoid, Jim. It's true we've listened to every word you've said since you got here, but we're not in the mind-reading business. Yet.” He throws me a wink. I shudder. “No, you told Lohengrin and the girls about your lucid dreams. That was how we knew about them. The real conundrum came when you followed the dragonfly up here. You didn't have access, but the dragonfly didn't know that. It was guiding you back to the Binder; I could see that, but I didn't kno
w why. So I gave you access.”

  “You did?”

  “It was a gamble, and it got me into all sorts of trouble with the Council. But there is something special about you, Jim. I knew it as soon as I met you. And the dragonfly seemed to know it too. What happened next, well, let's just say you confounded every scientist who's ever worked on the Binder.”

  I swallow a lump the size of a golf ball. “What do you mean?”

  “The way you entered it, rising up like that, with a protective bubble around you: no one's ever seen anything like that before, not in the hundred years we've known about this thing. Frankly, it freaked us all out. After that third time, when you encountered the live Finaglers, the Council decided to seal up the Binder from our end, for your own good, until we could get a solid handle on what was happening, on where the dragonfly was trying to take you. That's why it never returned. We didn't let it back into the Hex. Not after we saw that video footage the camera on your breather recorded.”

  I shoot him a sharp look, as if to say, So it was you that ruined it for me. You took away my awesome discovery. And all the while you were spying on me with hidden cameras and mikes.

  “When we carried you back to your quarters that third time, we weren't sure if you were going to come round or not. Luckily, you're tougher than you look. But that whole day freaked us out,” he admits sheepishly.

  “It freaked you out? I got to see brand new worlds from inside a soap sud. How do you think I felt?”

  “That's what I want to ask you about, okay?” he says. “Before the scientists at Alpha quiz you a million different ways about your experience, I'd like to hear your version, in your own words. Something tells me you haven't mentioned it to anyone yet. Not even after the canyon.”

  “Um, no. Not yet. I didn't know where to start.”