Starbound m-2

by Joe Haldeman

“I’ll be damned,” Dustin said. “They caught up with us this soon?” We’d talked about the possibility of Earth’s inventing a speedier spacecraft, which would catch up with us. Turnaround would be a logical place to meet, when our engine was turned off.

  “No,” Paul said, “if they were from Earth, they would have radioed.” He pushed the CLOSE SEQUENCE button, and the outer door closed and air sighed back into the little sealed room. The inner door opened and the stranger floated out toward us.

  He or she or it undid the helmet clasps and let the helmet float away. A male in his twenties or thirties, no obvious ethnicity.

  “Good for you. You didn’t try to kill me.”

  “You’re an Other?” Paul said.

  “No, of course not.” It wasn’t looking at Paul, just studying each of us in turn. “They couldn’t speak to you in real time. Your lives are trivially short and swift. I’m an artificial biological construct, like you two Martians, created to mimic a human rate of perception and reaction.

  “I’m a tool made by a tool. The one who communicated with you from Triton—”

  “Who tried to destroy the Earth,” Paul said.

  “Only the life on Earth, yes. I was made in case you survived that. As I believe you know, the one who made me lives slower and longer than humans or Martians, but is still a mayfly compared to the Others.”

  “It left Triton, though,” Paul said, “just before the explosion.”

  “Yes. It is here now, in a small habitat near your air lock. Fastened to the iceberg by now. We’ve been nearby for some time, within a few million miles, but of course did not physically connect until your engine stopped.”

  “Why are you here?” I asked. “To keep an eye on us?”

  “That, yes. And to help decide whether you should be allowed near the Others’ home planet.”

  “Then you’re set up to destroy us, as Red was?”

  “Not at all. It’s not necessary.” His expression revealed nothing. It was not neutral, exactly, but more controlled than the serving robots at McDonald’s.

  “Because the Others themselves won’t let us get close enough to hurt them,” Namir said.

  “That’s correct. We have already begun sending them information. I think the more you let me know, the better your chances will be.”

  “Do you have a name?” I asked.

  “No. You may call me whatever you please.”

  “Spy,” Namir said.

  “Considering the source,” it said, “I am honored.”

  “You know a lot about us?” I said.

  “Only what has been public knowledge on Earth. Namir, Elza, Paul, Carmen, Dustin, Meryl, Snowbird, Fly- in-Amber.” It pointed. “That would be Moonboy.”

  He was facing away from us, floating halfway to the kitchen, listening to music. “Yes,” Meryl said. “He’s not feeling well.”

  “Perhaps none of you are.” It looked around. “I will be as small a burden as possible. I will spend most of my time in my quarters, with the Other. Conversation necessarily takes a long time. Once we have deceleration, I can walk back and forth at will. The external air-lock control is simple; I didn’t use it this time because I didn’t want to frighten you with an alarm.”

  “That was neighborly,” I said. “Can I offer you something to eat or drink?”

  “Oh, no. I don’t want to burden your life support; I can take care of that in my own ship. Like the Martians, I consume very little.”

  “We were made by intelligent design,” Snowbird said, “not haphazard evolution.” She had been studying the history of human science. But it was correct; Martians needed only a third of the life-support mass humans required. (Being indifferent to what you eat or drink is a factor, too—if we were willing to live on hardtack biscuits and water, we could save a lot of reaction mass.)

  “You took a chance coming over here,” Paul said. “One course correction, and you’d be adrift.”

  “I’m replaceable. How often do you do that?”

  “Every few days.” Enough to keep us from going outside.

  “A reasonable risk.” It looked around. “I would like to have a tour of your ship, if you don’t mind. Then you may tour ours.”

  Paul nodded slowly. “We have nothing to hide.”

  “I can speak consensus Martian,” it said, turning to Fly- in-Amber. “Would you guide me?”

  Fly-in-Amber trilled a “yes” sound, and they headed off toward the Martian rooms. A logical starting place, but both Paul and Namir looked unhappy. “Wish it had chosen you,” Paul said to Snowbird.

  “I wish that as well,” she said. “I’m curious.”

  And more communicative, I didn’t bother to add. Fly-in-Amber might remember every detail, but we’d have to drag it out of him if he didn’t feel like talking.

  “Well… come into the control room,” Paul said. “We’ll see what their ship looks like.”

  I put on my gecko slippers and followed him. We waited at the door for the others.

  “General,” he said as he walked in, and the control surfaces morphed to that configuration, a lot more dials and knobs and switches than the set he’d been using. He strapped himself into the swivel seat, and said, “Outside view.”

  There was a flatscreen a meter square in front of him, and it darkened to a velvet blackness with a thousand sparks. He twiddled a joystick, and the angle veered around dizzyingly until it came to rest on a familiar view of the iceberg surface, with a decidedly unfamiliar visitor.

  It didn’t look like a spaceship; it didn’t look like a machine at all. It looked kind of like a starfish with seven legs, pebbly skin that was mottled red and black, with filaments like cilia or antennae wiggling on ribs that ran down each leg. It would have looked right at home on the ocean floor if it were hand-sized. But it was easily half as big as the ad Astra landing craft.

  “I wonder what makes it tick,” Namir said. “It can’t be carrying enough reaction mass for interstellar travel.”

  “Well, if it’s the same thing that left Triton, it took off at twenty-five gees,” Paul said. “That argues for something more exotic than we’ve got. Spy says they’ve been following us, for who knows how long… so I guess it went out far enough to be undetectable, then just watched and waited. Then tailed us at its leisure.” He cranked up the magnification and slowly examined the thing. No obvious portholes or gunports or wheels or grommets. I suppose if you examined a starfish with a magnifying glass, you would see about the same thing.

  “Maybe it’s alive, too,” Meryl said, “the way Martians are, and Spy claims to be. Grown for a specific purpose.”

  “I would vote for that,” Snowbird said.

  “Looks like a relative?” Dustin said.

  “In a way. If the Others have an aesthetic, and our design reflects it, so does the vehicle’s design. Don’t you think?”

  “See what you mean,” I said. Though “aesthetic” isn’t the word I would have chosen. It was almost ugly—but then so were the Martians until you got used to them.

  I went back to my workstation and considered the pictures of the ship, thinking of it in terms of a living organism. I’d studied Terran invertebrates, of course, and remembered a seven-legged starfish. I clicked around and found the one I remembered, a pretty British creature, nicely symmetrical and less than a foot wide. There was also a seven-legged one from New Zealand waters, almost a yard wide, that looked octopoid and menacing, and in fact a footnote warned that if it grabbed your wet suit, it was almost impossible to pry loose. But it was the slender British one, Luidia ciliaris, that resembled the starship.

  Nothing but its shape was relevant, of course. The only other creature I could find with seven legs, other than sadly mutated spiders, was the extinct Hallucigenia sparsa, a tiny but mean-looking fossil.

  The only picture we had of the Others was a simple diagram they sent that we interpreted as having six legs and a tail. Maybe they did have seven legs, instead. So built a starship in their own image.
<
br />   It was an odd shape for a vehicle, counterintuitive, but maybe my intuitions would be different if I had a seven-based number system.

  Zero gee isn’t conducive to abstract thinking, which may be one reason space pilots have not distinguished themselves as philosophers. Another reason may be that they are basically jocks with fast reflexes. I pinged my pilot and said I was going to nap for a while, and he joined me in the bedroom for a few minutes of not napping. Then we did doze together, floating in midair with a sweat-damp sheet wrapped around us. I dreamed of monsters.

  3

  THE GRAND TOUR

  The humans of course wanted to interrogate me as soon as Spy went back to its ship. But I hadn’t learned all that much about the creature. It asked all the questions.

  We first went to the Martian quarters. It already knew the basic principles of our recirculating ecology; in fact, it knew more about some of the science and engineering than I did. It appears to have a memory like mine, perfect, but it had studied Martian physiology, for instance, with more depth than I was ever exposed to.

  Part of what we discussed there is not translatable, because it has to do with an intimacy between Snowbird and me that has no human counterpart. To answer the obvious (to humans) question, it is not a sexual relationship, nor does it have anything to do with emotional bonding. It is a practical matter that has to do with being ready to die.

  The pool that you built for us interested it; it wanted to know what humans gained by this demonstration of friendship. Altruism was difficult to explain, but it understood about doing favors in expectation of eventual return.

  Then I took it around to all the crops. This took the most time, because for some reason it needed to know details about the propagation and maintenance of every species.

  (I would call this a hopeful sign. Why would the Others need this information other than to help humans survive after some life-support mishap?)

  Similarly, I took it through the warehouse area, which is mostly human food storage. It was interested in Namir’s homemade musical instruments. Music seems not as mysterious to them as it is to Martians; it asked me some questions that I could not answer; I said to ask Namir.

  It also asked questions about the shop area that I could not answer, mostly about the weapons that obviously could be made there. They can’t be thinking that we will be making swords and pistols to attack them. I expressed this thought, and Spy said of course I was right. But I assume the situation is more complex than that and recommend that Paul or Namir, with their experience as warriors, engage him on this topic, to reassure them.

  (I did not say anything, of course, about our conversation, our group meeting, on 8 May 2085, where we discussed the possibility of a kamikaze attack, using all of ad Astra as a high-velocity bomb. I assume that is no longer a possibility, so there was no need to discuss it.)

  It was very interested in the swimming and exercise area, with the virtual-reality escape masks, or helmets. It looked at the exercise log carefully, perhaps to have a picture of each person’s physical strength. There was a long and odd discussion about the physical differences between humans and Martians, which covered things it must already have known. I think it was examining my attitudes (or mine and Snowbird’s) toward you humans.

  I think that when we arrive at Wolf 25, the Others will want to exploit the difference between the two races and take advantage of the fact that we are, in some abstract essence, their children. As you know, from several conversations over these past three years, our allegiance is with you. Of course, that is exactly what I would say if I were lying, especially if I were on its side.

  It wanted to investigate some private quarters. Since I am closest to Namir, I prevailed upon him. I explained to Spy about the sexual relationship among him and Dustin and Elza, as well as I can understand it, and how that mandates the arrangement of the sleeping area of each.

  Of course, Namir’s bedroom is small (as is Dustin’s, since they are just for sleeping), and its walls are a constantly changing art gallery, thousands of reproductions from the great museums of Earth. Spy had difficulty understanding this, as do I. One thing Martians and humans have in common is a preference for darkness and quiet when we sleep. So what does it matter what’s on the walls? Dustin’s room is plain, with only an abstract picture he calls a mandala on one wall.

  In Elza’s bedroom there is a large cube for showing movies, which usually are depictions of humans mating in various ways, which Namir explained as being an aid in their own mating, or I should say “fucking,” since I understand that Elza, like the other females, has suspended her reproductive function for the duration of the flight.

  Of course Spy knew enough about human nature not to be surprised by that, as it was not surprised when we then visited the kitchen, where Namir pleases himself and the rest of you by preparing your food in various original ways. Neither we nor the Others see the point in changing the appearance and flavor of fuel.

  I think we shared a thing like humor over your counterproductive need for variety in these commonplace aspects of life. I don’t think its motives regarding me are friendly, though, or simple; it seemed to be testing me. Perhaps it will do the same with you humans at a later date.

  We heard Namir and Dustin making noise down by the swimming area, and backtracked to watch. They couldn’t play pool in zero gee, so they had improvised a three-dimensional variant, more gentle and slow than the original. I could not quite understand the rules, which amused them. Dustin said they had to make up the rules as the game progressed, since nobody had ever played it before.

  This may be important: Spy revealed that the Others have a similar activity. Much of their time, like yours, goes to individual contests that have only a symbolic relation to real events. The compact way it described those contests did not reveal much, except that the physical actions are not accomplished by individual Others; they are done by beings like Spy, biological constructs that are autonomous but obedient. And the point of the game is not to win, but to discover the rules.

  We completed the circuit by investigating the lounge and work areas, where most humans spend the waking hours that are not given over to strictly biological activities.

  When Spy began to put on its helmet, Paul came over to operate the air lock. One person can do it alone, but it’s simpler to have someone outside the lock pushing the buttons. He told Spy he would start to fire the steering jets at 0230; best to be inside by then.

  Before the outer door was even open, Carmen and the others were bearing down on me with questions.

  4

  OTHER-NESS

  Fly-in-Amber let us grill him for exactly one hour. Then he said he would submit a written report tomorrow and went off to rest.

  Namir wondered aloud how he would do that. Lying down is irrelevant in zero gee, but they never actually lie down, anyhow. Hard to sort out all the legs.

  Having a conversation was odd, too, without a physical up and down. By convention, most people tried to stay upright, but if you didn’t hang on to something, you could start to drift. Paul let himself go every which way, I supposed to demonstrate how natural the state was to an old space hand.

  We were in the compromise lounge, and it was cold. I told Snowbird we had to move into the dining area. She said she would come along for a little while.

  Namir had put a collection of ration bars in a plastic bag with a drawstring. I took a peanut butter one and passed the bag around.

  Snowbird bounced gently off the refrigerator and grabbed onto the dining-room table with three arms. “You were not too pleased with what Fly-in-Amber remembered?” she said to me.

  “We could wish for more. But we’ll have years.”

  “The next time it visits, we’ll have plenty of questions,” Paul said.

  “Can you establish a radio link?” Meryl asked. “Or would it be better not to?”

  “No reason not to,” Namir said. He looked around with a stony expression. “It’s a good thing w
e have nothing to hide. They’re probably hearing every word we say.”

  “Through vacuum?” I said.

  “Any Earth spook could do it. Spy could have dropped a microtrans-mitter in here while it was walking around, but you could be even more direct than that—attach a sensor to the hull and have it transmit the vibrations it picks up.

  “I don’t think that would work once the main drive starts up again,” Paul said. “The vibrations would overwhelm your signal.”

  “Maybe so.” His expression didn’t change.

  “They’d have something like S2N,” I said. It’s a spook program to coax out data that’s buried in noise.

  That brought a little smile. “How on earth do you know about S2N?”

  “I haven’t been on Earth since ’72,” I kidded him, “but you can learn a thing or two in orbit.” It was an unpleasant memory. Dargo Solingen had used S2N to spy on Paul and Red and me, overhearing our whispered conferences under loud music. A day later, our secrets were headlines on Earth, and the Others decided it was time for us all to die. Sort of a turning point in one’s life.

  “What it said about the Others playing games,” Dustin said, “to find out the rules. I want to know more about that.”

  “They might view us as contestants?” I said.

  “Or pieces,” Namir said. “Pawns.”

  “Anything but rivals,” Meryl said. “If they perceive us as a danger, we won’t even get close to them.”

  I nodded. “No matter what Spy says, we have to assume it can destroy us if it thinks we present a danger to the Others.”

  “We ought to figure out a way to talk to its buddy,” Paul said. “The speeded-up Other.”

  “Hard to visualize a conversation,” I said. “Eight minutes passing for us, for every minute it experiences.”

  “Say something, play a round of poker, then listen and respond,” Dustin said. “Spy will always be our intermediary anyhow.”

  Namir nodded. “We could do something like that. We just have to find a way to present it so it appears to give them an advantage.”