The Starry Rift

by James Tiptree Jr

  “Will that be all, Myr Exec?”

  “Right. Thank you.”

  As they leave they hear her say, “Fred, even if we start yesterday, we’re going to be late. Maybe too late... I wonder—we’ve been hearing these rumors out of Central. If by any chance they have something that works... we need it. I’m going to start hammering on some doors, life-or-death priority.”

  On far Zieltan, while that message is being recorded above them, Alien Languages Officer Zillanoy is calling up her friend Kanaklee, at his office.

  “Oh, Kanak—Something so exciting! I’m going into space on a real mission! I wish I could say a proper good-bye, but Captain Krimheen says I must get myself aboard in thirty stor or be left behind. Of course they wouldn’t leave me, because I’m the only Zhuman speaker they have, but I just will not hold them up.

  “You see, nobody knows the speed of the aliens’ ship. Of course our big warship will catch it easily, but he wants to make it a short chase so he can get back east.

  “Oh, I wish I could tell you all the excitement, with them running away and taking off in the midst of that rainstorm! I got two big water-bums, but they’re nothing. Only I have to save the details till I get back. To tell you the truth, though, I was delighted they got away. Captain Krimheen is so grim and suspicious. Real war must make everybody like that. He didn’t tell me he planned to trap them by taking out their fuel.

  “What I called about, aside from good-bye, my dear: It occurs to me that we should take a Ritual person with us in case we have to offer Thanksgiving. Or we might have a Ritual when we return, if we have many adventures. Which I have a hunch we will. The aliens might fight, or who knows what. Just between us, I think it’ll be a longer chase than Captain Krimheen does. And I believe they’ve come a longer way than he thinks. They’re surprising!

  “So I thought of your old nurser, Tomlo. It must be getting pretty old and feeble now that Kanlie’s so far in school. And I think it’s educated enough to appreciate a beautiful return to the Oversoul with honor, don’t you? What do you think?...

  “Oh, I’m so glad, I thought you’d agree. Then if it’s all right, I’ll just pick it up at your home on my way to the port, and I can say good-bye to Leiloy, too.

  “I’m so fond of Tomlo, you know I’ll take good care of it to the end. And I do think it likes me, don’t you, Kanak?...

  “Great! Now I must hop and fly. Imagine, we never thought when I went east to study that awful Zhuman language, it’d get me taking off on a combat mission, chasing aliens! Good-bye, dear Kanaklee, good-bye. Could you tell Leiloy I’ll be by as soon as I pack a couple of tail-bows? Oh, right—and prepare to have your ears talked off when I get back! Love and good-bye, good-bye!”

  The years pass...

  In the dark of space, in the depths of the empty Rift, a beacon’s soundless voice wails.

  Drawn by that voice, the silvery fish that is a Human spaceship approaches. It begins to decelerate. The beacon—Beacon Alpha—is circling a big ice-planet, which in turn is in far slow orbit around a great blue sun.

  But the little ship is not alone. Behind it, almost out of sensor range, there follows a much bigger ship. A warship of the Ziello from Zieltan, nosing implacably down the trail.

  In the small ship, four Human bodies tumble out of sleep-chests. Their first thought is fear; have they been wakened by an alarm? Is the warship closing in? But the alarms are still. Only the amplified wail of Beacon Alpha sounds in the bridge.

  Lieutenant Dinganar flings himself at the scope, rubbing the last mists of cold-sleep from his eyes. He scans around quickly, glances up at mass-proximity indicators, swivels the space-radar, goes back to the scope.

  “We’ve lost her!” he shouts. “Those indications at Beacon Beta were true, she can’t match our running speed. Oh, joy, oh, boy.”

  “That is a big help,” says Captain Asch soberly, to the general jubilation. When they had last clocked the warship, before fatigue had forced them to rest, the computer had given them a good probability of outrunning their pursuer. It was only a probability then. Now it’s certain.

  But it’s not salvation. Only a help, as Asch has said, in the game of outwaiting the warship at Beacon Alpha. There is no hope of losing her, of holing up and hiding; they are leaving an ion trail in virtually virgin space. However they double and hide, sooner or later the enemy will be coming down on them.

  “What now?” Dinger asks.

  “Now I take us off course and tuck us back of that planet to wait,” says Asch. “And then we play kittimousle with that thing. Around the beacon, around the planet, around the star... until help comes. Only we can’t; we haven’t the fuel. So my plan is to evade her for a while until we get good estimates of her turning radius, acceleration, and other flight characteristics. Then, if they seem to be serious about catching us... then I intend to try to parley.”

  “They know we don’t have much fuel,” Dinger comments. “Maybe they don’t, either. But unless they’re real short, why should they bother to parley?”

  “We have to figure they have a resupply coming,” says Asch. “If I were that captain, Captain Krimheen, I guess, messaging for reinforcements and supply would be the first thing I’d do once I saw I was heading into the Rift. Especially if I had FTL commo. Whatever we do, we should do it before any reinforcements show up.”

  “So?”

  “We have one threat,” Asch says slowly. “I think we’ll find we have enough extra speed and mobility to ram them. Suicide-style. We could probably remove them as a threat to the Federation. Of course there’d be enough scraps left so that their reinforcements could guess what happened. But their command would be gone. And we’d tell Base our intentions. But do we mean it? That’s what I need your vote on: Do we in fact ram, before letting ourselves be taken? Think over the implications; would that bring us closer to war?”

  A silence, as each considered years in an alien prison on a waterless planet, interrogations, the possibilities of the Base’s rescue mission, their personal lives and hopes.

  “I say ram,” Dinger says at length.

  “Ram,” says Shara. “Pfoo!”

  “There’s this, too,” says Torrane. “His reinforcements, if and when they get here, might not be able to figure what happened. They might conclude we had some superweapon, and get a healthy scare. I vote ram, while we still have enough fuel to afford a miss or two.”

  “So let it be recorded,” Asch says somberly. “Lieutenant Torrane, will you cut a message to Nine hundred outlining our plan? We’ll send it as soon as we can add a few specs on the capabilities of that ship. Lieutenant Sharana, I’ll need a lot of help on composing a parley message in pidgin. General idea is peace, not war; inviting them to Base—preferably minus their planet-breakers—and a later exchange of trade goods. We have our video technology, they have FTL transmission, for starters. Do you think you can get all that?”

  “Assuming that little Zilla-something is aboard, and she’s looked at the advanced language-pack. I better make a simple one in case she’s not.” Shara’s moving up to the copilot’s couch. “Oh, whew, by the gods!—do you feel it? We’ve lost those extra imaginary bodies and tails and all!”

  “Hey, yes!”

  “Great!”

  “Oh, it’s wonderful not to feel so clumsy!” Shara cuts a cartwheel through the rotating compartment that holds their sleep-chests; its spin provides a minimal gee to keep them healthy during the long sleeps.

  “I don’t know,” says Dinger the joker. “I may miss that tail. It was interesting.”

  “We’ve apparently run out of the Ziello influence,” Asch observes. “But why? It set in at the beacon here. No, wait—we’re on the Base side of the planet’s orbit now. Could we have cut it that fine by chance, to locate the beacon right on the border of the, ah, influence?”

  “Stranger things have happened,” Dinger remarks.

  “I have a theory,” says Shara, irrepressibly cheerful. “Maybe we Humans put out a fi
eld, too! Why not? And if we’re right where they overlap, mightn’t that give a really sharp border? And maybe it kind of fluctuates back and forth a little.”

  Captain Asch is rummaging through the software. “There’s an E and E program here. Evasion and escape. We’ll have to run it by hand until we know that ship’s maneuverability and what constraints to put in. Unless they’ve loaded on some smaller stuff, we don’t have to worry about being shot at; those planet-buster missiles are too big and slow to hit a small mobile target. I’m assuming they aim to pick us up with that tractor beam. Range and strength, unknown; we better estimate one fifty percent of ours, just to be safe... It’ll be a while before we get much sleep, at least all at the same time.”

  “They may knock out the beacon. Run over it,” reflects Dinger, still at the scope. “But we could put out another... If they get to breaking up planets to keep us from using them as temporary hidey-holes, the debris will serve just as well, for a while... Oh, by the gods, it’s a crime the way things have turned out. There’re some great planets here for meeting and trade, just at the halfway point, too...”

  “That’s the way things have turned out,” Asch says grimly.

  “Reverting to my theory,” says Shara, “I still don’t see why Humans couldn’t be putting out a field of influence, too.”

  “Our alien visitors would have reported it,” says Torrane from where he’s readying the message pipe.

  “Maybe not,” Shara persists. “Because maybe these things work only in real empty space. And nobody comes to us through the Rift. Didn’t you say your red-lizard thing was in an empty place like a piece of Rift, Captain?”

  “Possibly so, I can’t be certain. It’s a nice theory, Shara, but...”

  “But don’t measure your velocity until you’re sure your engines start, as Mama used to say, huh? Sure... But I’d like to think Humans have everything anybody else has. Hey—maybe every race throws a field, some stronger, some weaker—but they’re only noticeable if they’re near a real low-density region!... If it turns out the Ziello in that ship are feeling like imaginary Humans—remember you heard it here first. And / better get to work. Our grim pursuer should be showing up pretty soon.”

  “When it does,” Asch says to Dinger, “take a reading so we’ll know where any reinforcements will be likely to appear.”

  “Message recorded through status so far,” says Torrane. “Including the intent to ram, if the attempt at parley fails... Does anybody have any objections to naming that big blue sun ‘Ekaterina’?”

  General approval. But at the memory of the girl now lying frozen and lifeless in their cargo, the temporary euphoria vanishes. What’s ahead looms bleak—a life-and-death contest of maneuver with a largely unknown enemy, which may indeed have to end with self-inflicted death. And their home-haven, to which they dare not point the enemy, so relatively near. And all so needless, so nearly inexplicable—having for enemies the alien peoples who should have been met with friendship; the terrible prospect of interstellar war overshadows all—a crime, as Dinger had said. A crime of which they’re entirely innocent, the pawns of evil fortune... The words of the little interpreter: “Kill all Humans!” echo in their heads.

  “Got her!” says Dinger, pointing to his instruments. “There she comes... If her sensors are as good as ours, she ought to start decelerating pretty soon... I’m getting a trace of excess I.R.—could be caused by personnel in the cargo-bay.”

  “Marines in cold-sleep, at a guess,” says Asch.

  “The seeing’s very good—I could be getting those missile racks in a minim or two.”

  By this time the great warship is a naked-eye object, a bright splinter barreling along on their former course past the beacon.

  “I intend to wait until they’ve picked us up and are headed right at us,” says Asch. “Then I’ll bust out about at one seventy-five degrees to them, put the planet between us, and make a U-turn around the next planet in and wait for him again. Give Torry the missile data as soon as you pick it up, and we’ll send the pipe after we’re in motion, on his off side. Green?”

  “Green.”

  They wait. The warship is decelerating now, its retros bursting on the night like great blossoms. Dinger picks up the smaller missile racks. They’re empty; the warship is still armed only with the eight probable planet-breakers.

  “Little uneven on the navigation there,” says Asch critically.

  Their enemy is making a wide turn, evidently questing for their spoor. As they watch, it straightens out on a course from which they must be plainly visible. Then there’s another flare, and as it clears they see it heading straight at them. But it isn’t a clean aim; the alien pilot makes two—no, three course corrections. Asch is frowning.

  As the enemy warship grows in the view-port, he says, “Get ready for a quickie.” Closer and bigger yet it comes, until Shara can’t help glancing nervously at Asch, poised like a hawk over the controls. Bigger, closer—and suddenly the giant fist of acceleration is punching them down, as Asch cuts everything into a dash past the bigger ship and back along its course.

  “He should swing around on that planet,” Asch says, and straining to look back, they can see the enemy warship doing just that. All can see, too, that there’s a raggedness in his maneuver.

  “I’m not going to park by any more planets. Makes it too easy for him to turn,” Asch says, frowning at himself. They accelerate out of there as the other ship comes out of its turn, following them.

  “Message pipe released,” Torry says. “I think I sent it off while we were out of his field.”

  They run straight for a time, with the big ship falling ever-farther behind. “Curse the fuel,” Asch mutters. “This could be fun... I’m going to get on his tail to talk. How’re you coming with my speech, Shara?”

  The beacon’s wail is growing faint. Dinger turns it up.

  “Don’t want to lose track of that,” Asch says. He starts a swing to the northeast, watching his pursuer. At the instant the warship’s jets flare to turn with him, Asch rams on his opposing thrusters, knocking them around a hundred and eighty degrees, accelerating.

  “Now show us what you’ve got,” he tells the enemy under his breath.

  The big ship torches by, still turning the wrong way. Asch fires another turn that sends stuff winging and banging all over the cabin. A correction—and they end up following the warship’s tail. “That was easier than it should have been,” Asch comments, frowning harder.

  “For what it’s worth, I...” Torrane speaks up, hesitates.

  “Yes, what? You picking up something?”

  “I don’t know. Just trouble, faint. Faint... Oh, devils, probably I’m crazy.”

  “No. They’re not reacting right.”

  Shara hands her noter-recorder to him. “Here’s a draft of what you could say. All words are in the basic movie-talkie pack.”

  “Umm... good. Gods, it’s like baby-talk, isn’t it?”

  “Pidgin is almost a language. I’ve tried to exploit their distinction between ‘Zhuman’ and ‘Yooman,’ see. It’s to our advantage. And I thought you should repeat the whole thing so they get a second crack at it. You won’t want to read it twice, just record it—flip that switch when you start to speak—and replay.”

  “Green. I don’t see anything here to change. All right, go.” He thumbs the caller open. “—Federation ship Rift-Runner here. Federation Yoomanor calling Ziello fight-ship. Federation Yoomanor calling you. Come in, Ziello ship. You hear? Captain Krimheen, you hear?”

  No reply from the receiver except a shuffling, jangling sound. Then there is what might be a faint grunt. “At least they have their pick-up open,” Torrane says.

  “Captain Krimheen?” Asch repeats. Then he quickly puts his hand over the caller and says to the others, “Listen, you guys... I’d be obliged if you sort of don’t listen to this. I feel a perfect fool!”

  “Right.” All turn ostentatiously to other tasks, and Asch starts his speech. De
spite their best efforts, his authoritative tones cut through.

  “We want talk. We want talk you, we no want fight. Why you fight? Why you make war with Federation? Federation no want war, want peace. Federation no do bad things. We from Federation, no same Black Worlds Zhumanor. Black Words Zhumanor do bad things. Catch people, kill people. Make people dig dimons, zaranavths. We no want dimons. We want peace with Ziello. We fight with Black Worlds Zhumanor...” And on and on, to an invitation to an exchange of visits—“You come Federation, say hello. Federation come Zieltan, say hello.” And a final vista of trade and a warning of the horrors of war.

  In spite of Asch’s professed scorn, he really puts his heart into the peroration. “You catch us, kill us; Federation come catch you, kill you. You come Federation, blow up Base, kill all people—Federation come Zieltan, blow up Zieltan, kill all. You come Federation, blow up many bases—Federation come you, blow up more Ziello planets, kill more—Ziello big, Federation big! All peoples kill all peoples! War, war, war, long war. Bad, bad war no finish. Why we start war? We want talk, we want make peace.”

  Even as he speaks, faint sounds are coming from the receiver. Without pausing, Asch gestures Torrane to come closer, put his ear to it.

  “Now talk come two time,” Asch signs off, and puts the recorder to the caller. “Whew! What’re you getting, Torry?” In reply Torrane turns the volume up. Nothing—and then a childish voice says, “He’p!”

  Asch picks up the caller. “What? Say more!”

  “He’p,” cries the little voice. “Come he’p? Big peopre sick. Big peopre ve’y ve’y sick... Go O’ersou’ now... He’p, come.”

  There is a sound like things falling. No more voice.

  The Humans stare at each other. “What do we make of that!”

  “Some kind of trick?” Shara wonders.

  “If it’s a trap, it’s a good one.” Asch turns to the caller. “Who are you? Identify, identify yourself. Are you calling Rift-Runner?”

  But the little voice, childish but no Human child, only says again weakly, “He’p... Come he’p.”