The Wrong Stars

by Tim Pratt

  “Suicidal, I think was the word you used.”

  Callie winced. “You heard that? Sorry. The difference between brave and suicidal is a matter of perspective.”

  Elena sipped, then nodded. “We knew the risks. We just thought the potential reward made those risks worthwhile. Competition was fierce to join the goldilocks crews. The selection process was grueling, but I wanted to see the light of other stars on other worlds. To be part of the next stage of human development. It suited my sense of adventure, too. Even if we never made it anywhere, I knew I’d get to spend at least one day every several years awake on a starship, hurtling toward the barely-known. I never found anything more intoxicating.”

  “You’re in luck, then. You can explore a lot of other worlds now.”

  Elena laughed. “I’m not sure how I’m going to afford it, since you’ve all disappointed me greatly by failing to create a post-scarcity utopian society. I suspect my scientific skills are a bit out of date. I have as many valuable skills here as a barber-surgeon from the 1600s would have in my time.”

  “Nah, you have options. There aren’t many people around these days who lived on Earth five hundred years ago. There are probably a lot of people who’d pay for your story and insights.”

  “Oh, good.” Elena’s voice went dull: that bleakness again. “I can be a sideshow. A curiosity.”

  “I was thinking more a writer, or a lecturer, but there are other options. The Anjou is still floating out there, in need of a tow, and as the only member of the crew around, the ship belongs to you. I told the local authorities on Meditreme Station we’d found a wrecked ship with a survivor on board, and they tagged the Anjou in their system, so no scavengers will carry it away in the meantime. No legal ones, anyway, and illegal ones won’t try to steal a ship that’s tagged. Not around here. They know I might come after them. You can sell the Anjou – I’m sure it has some value.”

  “It’s really mine? It was never mine. Our ship and everything on board was the property of the One World Emergency Government.”

  “We’ve got a lot more than one world now, and out here the laws of the Trans-Neptunian Authority hold sway. The rules of salvage are pretty straightforward. If you find something abandoned in space, you can take it. If someone with a valid ownership claim comes forward, they can recover their property if they pay the expenses incurred by the salvagers, plus ten percent of the property’s value, as determined by an impartial appraisal AI. As the only verified member of the Anjou’s crew, you’ve got such a claim.”

  “So the Anjou is mine… but only if I pay you a percentage?”

  “Well, in theory, but in light of everything you went through, I’m willing to waive the fee.”

  Elena leaned back in her chair, some tension draining out of her. “That’s good of you, captain. I mean that. You could have easily taken advantage of me. I wouldn’t have known.”

  “Nah, I’m a sworn officer of the Trans-Neptunian Authority. I have to follow the law.”

  “I’m in good hands, then. But what value does the Anjou have? As an antique? A historical curiosity?”

  Callie moved away from the counter and sat down in the modular chair beside Elena. “Honestly? Yes. There are probably museums that would buy it, or collectors. We took a lot of things of value off the ship already – the intact biological specimens, and some of the more portable components.” Plus the weird thing Ashok had found in the engine room, but that was a subject for later. “You can sell that stuff, too, and keep the proceeds.” Callie almost automatically said “minus our expenses for transporting you,” but didn’t. The White Raven’s accounts weren’t in bad shape lately, after all those speed runs to the Imperative. She could afford an uncharacteristic act of generosity.

  Elena reached out and touched the back of Callie’s hand. “I don’t know why you’re being so good to me, but I appreciate it.”

  “What can I say? Kalea Machedo, scourge of the spaceways. Don’t tell anyone I have a heart.”

  The ship’s computer spoke up. “Approaching Meditreme Station. Please prepare for deceleration.”

  “Are you ready to see the future?” Callie said.

  “Ready or not, here I am,” Elena replied.

  Chapter Five

  Callie took Elena to the observation deck and helped strap her into a seat where she could watch through the viewport. “See that thing that looks like a crystal chandelier crossed with a wedding cake? That’s Meditreme Station.” They were already decelerating, thrust gravity easing off into weightlessness, and the ship’s reaction wheels were spinning to orient them for their approach to the docks.

  “It’s huge,” Elena said in awe. The original planitesimal, honeycombed with tunnels, was impossible to see beneath the layers of decks and modules and spires, the whole station spinning at a rate sufficient to impart a comfortable level of gravity in the outer rings, with lights blinking and shining from every curve and angle out into the local darkness. Ships of all sizes and shapes, including a few outré-looking Liar vessels, floated in the vicinity like exotic fish around a coral reef.

  “Biggish, anyway,” Callie said. “Home to around fifty thousand souls most days. Meditreme Station is the headquarters of the Trans-Neptunian Authority, the main human habitation beyond Jupiter’s moons, for scavengers, miners, scientists, and miscellaneous spacefaring types. Our ship’s computer–”

  “His name is Shall, he said?”

  Callie managed to keep her expression smooth. “Some of the crew call the computer that, yes. He’s making contact with the presiding machine intelligence on the station, and they’ll do a little AI-to-AI negotiation and then guide us into the docks.”

  The whirling station grew larger, then seemed to stop spinning as the White Raven matched the station’s rotation. The false gravity of acceleration dissolved completely, and the straps holding Callie into her seat pressed against her chest and hips, keeping her in place. The ship floated toward an open door in a module that was easily big enough to accommodate the White Raven. Once inside, magnetic clamps grabbed the ship, and the station’s outer door closed. After a few moments, the inner door of the oversized airlock yawned open, and a conveyor belt carried them into a cavernous hangar full of ships, cargo being loaded and unloaded, repairs being made, fuel and supply stores being replenished, and the general bustle of frontier commerce.

  The transition from thrust gravity to microgravity to spin gravity could give the inexperienced vomitous conniptions, and Callie kept an eye on Elena to see if the biologist was going to be sick. She looked a little queasy and pale, but she gave a weak smile, and Callie decided she’d probably be OK.

  Callie unstrapped herself, then helped Elena out of her seat. Stephen spoke over the ship’s speakers. “Captain, could you bring me my patient now? I’ve synthesized the last of her recovery drugs, and I’d very much like to help her clear her head.”

  “I could use you down in the cargo hold when you’re done up there, cap,” Ashok said over the same speakers.

  Callie sighed. “Computer, will you tell Doctor Oh how to find the medical suite?”

  “Of course, Callie.”

  “Captain Machedo,” she snapped. Elena gave her an odd look, and Callie resisted the urge to explain herself, especially since the explanation might make her seem even more ridiculous than yelling at the computer had.

  “Of course, Captain Machedo.” The computer didn’t sound amused, or even annoyed, which Callie found even more infuriating. “Elena?” he said. “Just head out to the corridor and take a left.”

  “I’ll talk to you soon.” Callie tried to give Elena a reassuring smile. “You seem pretty smart and funny already, so I can’t wait to hear you after the holes in your memory get filled in.”

  The biologist chuckled and departed with a little wave, only stumbling a little as she got used to the gravity level.

  Callie went to the machine shop to see what Ashok wanted. He squatted beside a work table so the surface was just at his
eye level – or the level of all the accumulated lenses where his eyes should have been, anyway. She stood beside him, looking down at the object on the table: a cube about half a meter wide on each side, made of some greasy-looking black substance, with a single input port shaped like a crescent moon on top. The thing Ashok had discovered hooked up in the Anjou’s engine room, and found so bizarre he’d carefully detached it and brought it along for further study. “What am I looking at, Ashok?”

  “I have no idea.” Ashok usually confronted technological problems with glee, but he seemed subdued now, as if he’d met his match. “Most of the changes to the Anjou were cosmetic and basically pointless, curlicues of wiring that went nowhere and did nothing, external engine parts that weren’t even hooked up to anything – but this thing was wired into the ship’s propulsion and navigation systems, and it was definitely doing something. I can’t see what’s going on inside the box, not with any of the equipment here–” he tapped the array of lenses on his face “–or with the ship’s sensors. Every diagnostic particle and wave I throw at this thing just gets absorbed. I don’t even know what material the box is made of. It looks almost gooey, doesn’t it, like it was dipped in axle grease? Seems like it would leave smears on your clothes if you brushed up against it. But it’s hard as iron and smooth to the touch.” He tapped the cube with one of the fingers on his non-prosthetic hand to demonstrate, rubbing his fingertips together afterward with a shrug. “That greasy look is some kind of purely optical effect, and I can’t figure it out. Anyway. If the navigational data on the Anjou is accurate, this box somehow allowed the ship to travel about fifty light years in twenty-one seconds.”

  “Exactly twenty-one seconds?”

  Ashok nodded. “The same length of time it takes to traverse a wormhole from one end to the other.”

  Callie grunted. The implications of that were interesting, but she decided not to dwell on them, especially since corrupted data was a more plausible explanation. Horses, not zebras – and certainly not centaurs. “OK, so we’ve got a magical mystery box. What do we do with it?”

  Ashok stood up, pistons hissing and servos humming in his augmented legs. “I want to break it open.”

  “But.”

  “But it could be full of explosions, so I won’t. Also, I don’t know how. I tried to chisel out a bit of the casing for analysis and broke my diamond drill bit without even leaving a scratch.” He rubbed the back of his head, which was still mostly skin over bone. “OK. If our working theory is the Anjou encountered a group of Liars out in deep space, and the Liars augmented and altered the ship for whatever reason, including attaching this weird cube, then this is Liar tech. I’m friendly with one of the Liar engineers on the station, so I’ll ask him to take a look, and see if he recognizes it.”

  “You think you’ll get a straight answer out of him?”

  “Of course not. But I might get an answer that’s twisty in a useful way.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll go with you. I’m a little curious to find out what’s in this box myself.”

  “Spiders or gold, spiders or gold,” Ashok said.

  “Oh, Ashok. It’s like you never even consider the possibility of golden spiders.”

  * * *

  Out on the hangar deck, a Liar technician slither-walked toward them, four tentacles undulating underneath as three more waved diagnostic devices in the air. “Greetings, White Raven. You wanted to see me?” His artificial voice was bombastically deep and booming. “His” wasn’t really accurate – Liars didn’t exactly fit into human gender categories, and when it came to biological sex, Liars either reproduced asexually or had multiple sexes or cloned themselves, depending on which group you were talking about; they seemed as variable in their reproductive strategies as they were in everything else. Some of them selected gendered pronouns when dealing with humans, though, and this one liked “he” to go with his performatively masculine voice.

  “Hello, Cuz,” Ashok said. At Callie’s questioning look, he said, “His name is My Cousin Paolo, but I call him Cuz for short.”

  “White Raven and I are old friends,” the Liar said. “I honor him by allowing this informality. The use of nicknames is a sign of deep affection and respect among my people.”

  Callie decided not to ask why the Liar addressed Ashok by the name of her ship, or why he was called My Cousin Paolo. Liar names were just odd, that was all. Some were incomprehensible mishmashes of sound, or grandiose titles (or both, like Tlthm the Solarian, who operated a salvage and repair shop on the lower levels of Meditreme Station), or common nouns (Callie had met Liars who called themselves Brick, Loaf, and Shoe), or phrases poetic or dull, or even ordinary human names – sometimes a Liar would claim to have exactly the same name as the person they were talking to, often expressing astonishment at the outlandish coincidence. Really, My Cousin Paolo wasn’t even all that strange a name by Liar standards.

  “Does your ship require service?” the Liar said.

  “Not at the moment,” Ashok said. “We found something in a wreck, though – an engine component we don’t recognize, or maybe part of a navigation system – and I wanted you to take a look. We think it might be something your people made.”

  A couple of the Liar’s pseudopods undulated lazily in the air. “My people made everything. My ninety-nine-times-progenitor is the one who seeded your planet Earth with life, in the times prehistoric. Do you have this component with you?”

  Ashok beckoned him closer, then crouched down to open up the duffel bag he’d stashed the cube in, revealing the greasy black shape of the box inside. “What do you think?”

  My Cousin Paolo made a high-pitched keening sound that seemed to come not from his artificial voicebox but from some more organic place, which was astonishing in itself – Liars were almost never heard to vocalize naturally, and the prevailing theory was they communicated among themselves with pheromones, gestures, and color-changing skin cells rather than sound. The Liar scuttled away from the cube and began to shout, his booming mechanical voice overlaying the high-pitched wail, a single word over and over: “Axiomatic! Axiomatic! Axiomatic!”

  The Liar raced away faster than Callie had ever seen one of its kind move before, using all his tentacles in a complicated leaping and vaulting motion, at one point spinning end-over-end like a wheel, before disappearing into a three-foot-square access hatch in a far wall.

  “That was not the reaction I was expecting.” Ashok zipped the duffel closed.

  “Axiomatic? What does that mean?”

  Ashok’s upper left eye-lens rotated at her. “It means self-evident. From the Greek ‘ἀξίωμα,’ meaning ‘something known to be true.’”

  Callie glared at him. “There are so many things in this hangar I could hit you with, Ashok. I know what the word means. Why did that Liar shout it and run away?”

  “I have no idea. He’s never done anything like that before. It was unusual even by Liar standards. Maybe the box frightened him?”

  “It’s a black box,” Callie said. “What’s scary about a black box?”

  “Maybe whatever’s inside it?”

  Callie shivered despite herself. “You’re sure that thing’s not pouring out radiation or cram packed full of imminent explosions?”

  “I have no idea what it’s full of, but it’s not putting out anything.”

  “Be careful with it anyway. Liars do bizarre things sometimes, so maybe Paolo wasn’t fleeing in terror from an alien artifact that’s about to kill us all, but go easy until we figure out what this thing is.”

  “I did have another diagnostic approach in mind,” Ashok said. “I could plug the White Raven’s navigation and propulsion systems into the box and see what happens. I saw how it was hooked up on the Anjou, so reproducing those connections would be easy enough.”

  “No. New rule. We do not plug mysterious alien technology into my ship.”

  Ashok continued without changing inflection. “Or, alternately, I could get Shall to simulate a navig
ation and propulsion system. Then I could plug this box into another computer and fool it into thinking it’s hooked up to an actual ship. Then we can see what happens in a safe, sane, and simulated way.”

  Callie chewed her lower lip for a moment. “OK. Do that. But plug the box into a separate, air-gapped system, totally sequestered – I don’t want you accidentally uploading some alien program onto the White Raven’s main computer, or the larger station network.”

  “Cap. You wound me. Security is the first thing I think about when I get up in the morning and the last thing I think about before I go to sleep.”

  “You don’t sleep.”

  “Not true. I just sleep one hemisphere of my brain at a time. It’s much more efficient than your ridiculous whole-brain dream-state approach.”

  Callie returned to her ship and made her way to the medical suite. Elena was asleep on a gel-filled mattress, wearing only a thin gown, and Stephen sat on a stool in the corner tapping away at a handheld slab of smart matter. Callie resolutely resisted the urge to let her gaze linger on Elena. “Is she all right?”

  Stephen held up the handheld terminal, which showed an array of blips and waveforms that meant nothing to Callie. “All her vitals look good. No bad reactions to the medication. I had to dig pretty deep in the Tangle to find the protocols for treating someone awakened from that particular form of cryosleep. She should return to consciousness in an hour or so with her memory restored, in theory. Are you going to be on the ship for a while?”

  “Why?”

  “I need to visit a chemist to pick up supplies for my next holy day. I don’t have the right precursors on board to produce the sacrament myself – in fact, I had to use some of my personal stores to synthesize Doctor Oh’s medications. A lot of her therapy is about properly rebalancing her brain chemistry. I’ll go now, if you can watch over her, in case she wakes up earlier than expected. I’d ask Drake and Janice to keep an eye on her, but they might be a bit much for Elena to take in. Her visit to the future hasn’t been all that disorienting yet, but if she sees them, or Ashok, without proper preparation, she might be alarmed. The definition of ‘human’ wasn’t quite as broad in her era as it is in ours.”