The Octagonal Raven

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Why? Because I wanted to live my own life?”

  “Most people don’t. Anyway … if you need anything I can provide, I’m here, and, like I said, probably a week or two on the next job.”

  “I’m here.”

  “Get some rest.” Those were Klevyl’s parting words.

  But I didn’t get either rest or exercise, because the gatekeeper clinged once more. I blinked. Apparently, I actually was getting a response from Elen Jerdyn from NetSpin — another small system, but one that positioned itself to deal with those who enjoyed the art world.

  The image that appeared before me was of a woman of indeterminate age, with short and straight brown hair, in a conservative brown singlesuit trimmed with white, and with a short off-white jacket. Her eyes were large and gray, even as presented by the VR.

  “Daryn … Elen Jerdyn from NetSpin. I almost sent the thank-you-your-work-is-great-but-not-exactly-for-us sim back. But I remembered I’d really liked the edart piece you did on the Warsha Symphony a couple of weeks back. So I checked out some of your other work.”

  “I’m glad you liked the Holst piece,” I answered, coming up with a smile I hoped wasn’t too forced.

  “You do good work. Not just the feel, but the technical side.” Jerdyn paused. “Word is that you got bounced by OneCys. Care to explain?”

  I shrugged. “I think someone was looking for an excuse. I missed only one deadline in ten years, and that was because a wall fell on me.”

  “A wall fell on you?” Her eyes widened.

  “The cemetery wall in Helnya,” I said dryly. “I was trying to be a good citizen. I thought I heard a little girl calling for help. I went to look, and several tonnes of stone toppled on me. I finished my work for Myrto while I was still in the medcenter with my legs in regrowth. I was maybe ten days behind.”

  “The big outfits are like that.” She grinned wryly. “Ten years don’t matter.”

  “You hear that, but you always think you’ll be different.” I laughed. “Then, you never know what’s going on behind the sim-smiles.”

  “OneCys is making a big push to unseat UniComm. Rumor has it that one of their investor interest groups — StakeHold Group — thinks OneCys should have a bigger market share.”

  “I know about the push. I did some of the analytical work on it.”

  Jerdyn shook her head. “It happens. Tell you what. We’re small, but we’re not doing badly. You know our niche. I’d like to send you a small assignment — analyze an interest-time-combo slot we’ve had trouble with. I’ll send a copy of the format we like, and the parameters. Ten to twenty of your billables, and we’ll see if we fit.”

  I didn’t have to force the smile. “I’d like that. It’ll be fun to work for someone who knows what they want, as opposed to an outfit that tries to be all things to all people.”

  “The stuff’s on its way. Two weeks?”

  “Two weeks.” I would have promised sooner, but that was dangerous.

  “Good. And I did like the Holst piece — and the one on the forerunner Gate.”

  “Thank you.”

  The slightest cling in my thoughts, and Jerdyn’s sim image was gone, and I was looking out at the redstone cliffs to the east.

  StakeHold — I’d never heard of it, but it shouldn’t take too much to find it.

  I set up the routines, and then stripped down for my exercises.

  By the time I finished sweating and panting, and taking a quick shower, the search results were waiting.

  There were almost a hundred different outfits named StakeHold, and from the capsule descriptions, they could be almost anything, and that meant refining the search more — difficult when I wasn’t sure exactly what I was seeking and if the information meant anything at all. Still, I set up another round of searches on the names and organizations, and then checked the system for incomings. Sure enough, the material from Jerdyn had arrived.

  That meant I had to get to work, since I still wasn’t ready, either in terms of physical condition or information, to follow up on trying to find out why people wanted to kill me, and who they might be. And whether there was a connection to OneCys … or whether that had just been an excuse triggered by my would-be killers.

  * * *

  Chapter 31

  Fledgling: Supra-Ecliptic Space, Pavo 31, 435 N.E.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Alixan was fresh out of Kuritim, and I’d just made major, and we had a new captain, when the unexpected happened.

  Alixan hadn’t had the con for four minutes, less than ten minutes into our acceleration insystem from the Beta Gate “above” Pavo 31, when he was on the link again. “Major … there’s an echo image from the Gate, but it’s in the wrong place.”

  I was on-system immediately. Everyone talked about echo images, but they didn’t happen often. In fact, I’d never seen one or records of one in the nearly ten years I’d been a pilot.

  In scanning everything, I didn’t take long to find the image — except it wasn’t an image. It was the reverse of one, and that was probably what Alixan had meant. There was a lack of background dust and radiation that formed an image — almost toroidal.

  “I have the con, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, ser. You have the con.” Puzzlement came over the net.

  I ignored it, pulsing a direct link to the captain. “Ser … probable artifact ahead. Request permission for … three gee deceleration after notice.”

  “Artifact, Major?”

  “Yes, ser. Forty-three point four, eighteen green.”

  There was a silence while the captain followed the coordinates himself. I hadn’t expected anything less.

  “Permission granted, Major. Maintain full scoop shields and initial ten emkay stand-off.”

  “Yes, ser.” I went wide net. “All hands strap in. All hands strap in. Three gee deceleration commencing in two minutes. Three gee deceleration commencing in two minutes.”

  More than a few inadvertent comments drifted onto the shipnet.

  … frigging FS …”

  … another essing drill …”

  … no more sleep …”

  I checked the reverse energy image once more, but it remained stable.

  “Deceleration in one minute. Deceleration in one minute.”

  Even at three gees decel just out of the Pavo Beta Gate, I still overshot the object — whatever it was, and while the rest of the ship was scrambling to deal with the aftermath of an unexpected three gee decel followed by weightlessness, I was using all the ship systems. But there was nothing there. Whatever the artifact or object was, it neither radiated nor absorbed energy — not from the direction of 31 Pavo.

  “It’s like it disappeared, ser,” Alixan observed.

  I ignored the comment and continued to scan for what wasn’t there, and as I suspected, in the microwave range, there was a patch where there wasn’t any universal background. I pegged the coordinates, and reoriented the ship with the side ionjets.

  “All hands remain in restraints for maneuvering. All hands remain in restraints for maneuvering.”

  … not routine …”

  … got to be something out there …”

  “This is the captain. Keep the net clean!” His voice and persona came across the net like full photonwash, scouring everything.

  I eased the Newton forward, then at an angle, trying to get some form of parallax to gauge the distance.

  “Appears to be fifteen emkay,” I pulsed the captain. “No EDI tracks. Energy dead.”

  “Approach to ten, Major.”

  I eased the ship to ten emkay, but outside of the lack of microwave radiation, there was still no way to discern the object. “Recommend circling.”

  “Approved.”

  I could tell that Alixan still remained puzzled.

  “We’ll get a better resolution with it backdropped against Pavo,” I explained.

  “Someone didn’t want it to be found,” the lieutenant suggested.

  I’d already
thought of that, and all the magshields were set full. But nothing happened, except the somehow not quite toroidal shape became slightly clearer once it was between the Newton and 31 Pavo. We sat and probed as we could, but nothing we had revealed anything.

  “Request permission to approach to one thousand klicks.”

  “Granted, with full screens, and photonjets ready for full acceleration.”

  “All hands remained strapped in stations. Emergency acceleration is possible without warning. Emergency acceleration is possible without warning.”

  Even as close as a thousand klicks, with scanners at full sensitivity, the only way of detecting the object was by its comparative blocking of various background energies.

  “Request permission to send scanner torp, Captain.”

  “Permission granted.”

  I eased one of the remote scanner torps away, and then we waited some more. Initially, the signals showed even less than did the Newton’s. Not until the torp was within five klicks was there anything but a faint haze on the screen that showed the image relayed from the torp scanner.

  The captain and I both waited. I could also sense the ops officer on the private link, for all that subcommander Matteus had offered nothing.

  Abruptly, an image appeared — a greenish white donut or torus, somehow off-centered. I blinked as I studied it, even though the image was mental, direct-fed from the scanner relay.

  The object or artifact was massive.… and old.… It reeked age as it seemed to slide through the darkness of extraplanetary space, through the scattered molecules that the Newton’s sensors registered as hundreds per cubic meter, but which I felt through the sensors as a cold mist … colder than mere snow or sleet.

  “It’s big … bigger than we are, ser,” link-whispered Alixan.

  The data inputs confirmed that the object — and it had to be something like a massive ship or artificial satellite with the damped visual, EDI, and radar return, the albedo, and the shape — did indeed dwarf us. Secondary inputs suggested that the structure was of some form of composite with a metallic skeletal structure. It was roughly a klick in diameter. And it was cold and dead, its surface barely above the ambient of the deep space around it.

  Something about the object felt familiar … in a different way … almost like a Gate station, and it was similar, if not exactly, to the toroidal structure of a Gate. It was certainly set far enough out from the planets and above the ecliptic. But it wasn’t meant to be seen, especially from inside the system.

  Letting the sensors gather the data, letting Captain Andruhka pour over it as well, I studied and waited.

  I could feel the captain rummaging through the shipnet in his heavy-minded way, and I finally offered my own calculations to him. “There’s no way to determine its mass or much of anything without sending a probe almost to its surface, ser.”

  “It could be antimatter, even …” whispered Lieutenant Alixan.

  “Not possible,” I said aloud into the stillness of the control capsule. “We’re in real space, and there’s gas around us … be an energy trail if it were … and there are no fields for shielding.”

  “You may send a probe, Major.” There was a laugh. “No one would ever believe us without some data, and space is too big to chance trying to find it again.”

  He was right about that. Luck and Alixan’s alertness were all that had allowed us to discover it this time. While second-guessers might say we should have marked the locale and sent for the scientists … how many other ships had passed nearby and not found it? And what if we left and no one else could? Or took months or years to do so?

  Readying the probe and ensuring the programming was accurate for what we wanted took nearly thirty minutes. Then I/the Newton eased the probe toward the massive artifact … and waited.

  There were no energy bursts, nothing, as the probe glided toward the surface of the object and began a mapping survey of the surface from roughly four hundred meters away.

  The mapping was almost complete when the captain touched my link.

  “Bring the ship to one hundred klicks,” ordered the captain.

  “Yes, ser.” With a light touch on the photonjets, and the mag-fields still up, I eased the Newton toward the enigmatic object.

  Once stabilized that close, where the ship’s sensors could actually pick up its image, if fuzzily, the ops team, the captain, and I studied the images and data coming back from the probe. All I could do was observe through the probe’s sensors, with the captain’s heavy mind panting across the shipnet.

  “There are what appear to be exterior locks at regular intervals,” offered Subcommander Matteus.

  “Might as well look at one,” suggested the captain. “Aren’t any other surface details. Send the probe.”

  “Yes, ser,” replied Matteus.

  So the probe made for one of the apparent locks, a dark gray or black octagon roughly two meters on each side and set against the off-white featureless surface of the artifact. The probe’s remote samplers had already indicated that the surface was some form of inert composite, a material beyond the remote analysis capabilities of the probe.

  The remote scanners showed a bronzelike flat octagon, set in the white composite at one vertex of the far larger black octagon we thought might be an airlock to the interior of the octagonal toroidal structure.

  “We’re recording all this, ops?” asked the captain.

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Send a message torp to the Gate station with a copy of what we have now, and with the location of the artifact.”

  “Yes, ser,” answered Matteus.

  We probably should have done that sooner, but when confronted with what seemed to be the first sign of alien life ever, I could understand the oversight. In fact, I hadn’t even thought about sending off a message torp.

  Matteus had a torp off even before the probe had finished its analysis of the octagonal lock door.

  “The smaller octagon looks like it might turn,” offered the ops officer.

  “This is where we stop.” The captain laughed, a harsh sound even over the net. “We wait for the experts, and make sure they can find our artifact.”

  That made a sort of sense. We weren’t equipped to deal with alien exploration.

  “Major Alwyn.” The captain came through the net to me on a private link.

  “Yes, ser?”

  “Put the images on the passenger net, and announce something about the uniqueness of the situation.”

  “Yes, ser.” I understood that, immediately. We were going to be weightless and hanging in the middle of supra-ecliptic space for quite a while.

  That was as exciting as it got for a long time, because all we did was wait and orbit the alien artifact. There were no signals from the alien station, and all I could do was watch the featureless exterior. So I tried to compute the parameters for the alien station’s position. Not surprisingly, at least to me, its position was in one of the least gravitationally conflicted positions out of the system ecliptic, or the least conflicted possible, assuming it was something like a Gate, because that was certainly what it felt like to me. I did wonder why, if it were a Gate, no artifacts had been found in-system in the past two hundred years of habitation … unless the Gate was indeed old in geological terms and such artifacts were well below the planetary surfaces.

  But I was the first pilot on duty when the Newton found the forerunner Gate.

  The Newton only spent three weeks floating off the forerunner Gate, because that was exactly how long it took for the Federal Union to send another ship loaded with experts and gear to relieve us.

  Then we headed in-system. There we floated off the Orbit control station of Pavo 4, otherwise known as Newage, where we floated for another week while we were inspected from afar, and then from very close, to ensure that nothing alien had returned with us.

  All that inspection found nothing, but I would have been surprised if they had, because the station was old — anywhere from ten thous
and to ten million years, according to what we could figure, and the engineering types were marveling over the composite used in the outer walls. After all that time, it was still smooth. A standard laser wouldn’t cut it, nor would any standard equipment we had. I suppose it could have been destroyed by a focused photonjet, but there wasn’t much point in that kind of destructive testing, not after all the years of wondering whether we were alone in the galaxy.

  And after all that, we went back to carting high-tech freight, equipment, and personnel between Earth and the various out-systems. Just as if we’d never even found the forerunner Gate — except that we were strongly encouraged not to talk about it.

  * * *

  Chapter 32

  Raven: Helnya, 459 N.E.

  * * *

  After all the sysnet and data searches I’d run, the second round results were generally pretty dismal, not all that much better than the first. I was beginning to have greater appreciation for the news staffs on any of the networks. Data and names meant nothing out of context. I knew that with environmental specs, or quantity/quality program comparison, or all the other methodizer work I’d done — but the client had provided the context. In my own case, I had no context.

  Fine … there was an organization or group called StakeHold. Actually, of the hundred I’d found the first time, the second search had dropped the numbers to a few more than a dozen in various parts of Earth, and even on Luna and in the Belt. Only one fit, and there was nothing on it, not directly, except a netsite and a charter, and the charter was as vague as vague could be: “… dedicated to the proposition that good organizational management shall reflect maximization of productive assets, the active support and promotion of excellence in services provided, products, and organizational policies, and impartial adherence to justice …”

  From the short description, it seemed to be a loose federation of interests and individuals designed primarily to pool voting interests and clout to put greater pressure on managements of public-held outfits — mainly to force management improvements. At least, that was the avowed goal.