The Wrong Stars

by Tim Pratt

  “At this magnification, for us to see something moving on the surface, it would have to be immense. Mountain-sized, like in those old movies Ashok likes–”

  “Kaiju,” he crackled. “You’re telling me we’re orbiting a planet of giant monsters? The universe is amazing.”

  “Scanning for motion,” the ship said. The screen flashed, showing various segments of the city, if it was a city, and not a power plant, or art piece, or cemetery, or something less comprehensible. Callie caught another flicker of movement, and the image froze for several seconds as something passed from underneath a twisted cloverleaf of tunnels onto a patch of clearer ground. The image incremented forward in slow-motion, showing the thing’s movement as a series of progressive frames. At this magnification the image was a little blurry, but the basic shape of the thing was recognizable.

  Elena turned her back on the viewscreen, wrapped her arms around herself, and trembled.

  “It’s just like the creature Elena described,” Stephen said, presumably watching on his own tablet in his quarters. “The thing that ate her friends. The long body, the neck, the flower-bud head.”

  “Except the one she saw was the size of a bus.” Callie went to Elena and put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her, but Elena flinched away. “How big is this one?”

  “It must be at least a mile long,” the ship said. “Which is absurd, because the gravity on this planet should be very close to that of Earth, and a creature that size would collapse under its own weight. Unless it’s not a creature at all, but a biological machine – or, more likely, a sort of cyborg with mechanical reinforcement.”

  “They can control gravity.” Elena’s voice was calm, but when she turned back to the screen, her face was wet with tears. “They did that on the station. I don’t think there’s much they can’t do. But I agree, it’s not possible something like that – what was it? kaiju? – could evolve naturally, so it must have been engineered and altered, if not created from scratch. I know you said the Liars like to tinker, but that thing… it’s way beyond tinkering.”

  “I vote we don’t go down there to explore,” Janice said. “I don’t care if the place is cram-packed with priceless alien artifacts. I don’t like bugs when they’re bug-sized...”

  “If an emergency protocol brought us here, do we think it lit up a tattletale light somewhere down there in that city?” Callie said. “Are the Liars going to come out and greet us, thinking we’re old friends who need help?”

  “It’s possible,” the ship said. “But honestly, captain, it looks like a ghost city down there. An occupied planet produces all sorts of detectable noise – transmissions across a vast range of the electromagnetic spectrum, energy signatures – but we aren’t getting anything. It’s just inert, apart from the mile-long bug-monster. No, wait – there’s another one.”

  This new kaiju, identical to the first, clambered up the side of one immense structure, and crawled ponderously along. On the viewscreen it looked almost close enough to touch. The branch it moved along was powdery gray, but when it passed over, a dull silvery sheen was left in its path. “Is it cleaning the structure?” Callie said.

  “Like a snail crawling up the wall of an aquarium,” Elena said. “Huh. I wonder if that’s what they are – just mindless cleaners? The one in the space station that picked up my friends… maybe it perceived them as pests, or detritus, just trash to be collected.”

  “You think my kaiju friend down there is a robotic vacuum cleaner?” Ashok said. “My sense of wonder just took a pretty big hit.”

  “So the Liars abandoned their homeworld?” Callie mused. “Left their robot vacuum cleaners running and headed for parts unknown? Or maybe this was a military base in some ancient conflict, and there’s an old emergency protocol in our bridge generator that brought us here even though it’s not an active facility anymore?” She sighed. “I’m just making shit up now. Incorporate some of this footage into your message for the authorities, would you, Stephen?”

  “Already working on it,” he said.

  “Ho, shit, look.” Drake sounded almost delighted.

  The cleaner-kaiju had spread immense wings, four of them, iridescent as a dragonfly’s, and now it flew over the city, though it didn’t seem to flap its wings – they appeared to be more for steering, as it banked and leaned and spun, landing on another part of the structure miles distant, and beginning to clean that one.

  “Gravity manipulation of some kind seems increasingly likely,” the ship said.

  “Good use of understatement,” Callie said. “All right, cruise around, let’s see what’s happening in the southern hemisphere. Hold tight, Ashok. We’re moving again.”

  The ship shifted, the vast megastructure scrolling past on the viewscreen. “Zoom out.” The image shrank until the kaiju were invisible again, and they could see the curve of the planet.

  They dropped below the equator and got a look at the other half of the day side. The vast structures continued, but large sections were in disrepair here – some of the tunnels were broken, revealing dark cores, and some were mottled with a black substance that might have been mold or toxic waste or tarnish.

  “I want a closer look.” Callie and Elena both stepped right up to the glass as it blipped though another set of magnifications. The cameras found one of the kaiju sprawled unmoving on its back, head pinned beneath a broken section of the structure, its belly torn open and crusted with some greenish substance. “Looks like the maintenance crew is slacking off down here,” Callie said. “If this place isn’t uninhabited, it’s certainly neglected. That makes me feel a little better, for some reason.”

  “Hey, uh, I’m coming back in,” Ashok said. “I’ve had enough of the great outdoors. Meet me in the machine shop, cap?”

  “I’m assessing alien threats here, Ashok.”

  “I’d like to formally tender a report on the results of my inspection, Captain Machedo.”

  A little tickle of alarm went up the back of Callie’s neck. “Sure thing. Stay here, Elena? Fill up that science brain with new information and see if any conclusions fall out.”

  “My brain is feeling overstuffed already, but I’ll do my best.”

  Callie headed down to the machine shop, stopping by her quarters to pick up her sidearm first, tightening the webbed belt across her hips. Ashok didn’t volunteer to give reports on inspections, certainly not so formally, and he didn’t call her “Captain Machedo”, so something was off. Maybe she was just being paranoid, but then, an alien conspiracy had murdered fifty thousand people just to blow up her ship, so she thought a little paranoia was justified.

  She went into the machine shop and waited, back to a wall, eyes on the far door. Ashok arrived, still wearing most of his environment suit, though his helmet was off and stowed. He put a finger to his lips, then shut the door. He hit a switch on a console and the walls in the room hummed faintly. “OK, we’re secure.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means nobody can hear what we say in here, not even the ship’s computer. The comms are blocked, the doors are locked down and can’t be overridden from outside, and there’s even a white noise generator if someone tries to listen through the door.”

  “When did you put those measures in place? And why?”

  “Ages ago, and because I watch really unconventional pornography in here sometimes while I’m working.”

  “Ashok. Eww.”

  “You asked. But right now I’m using my shame-based countermeasures because I found something seriously disturbing out there on the hull. Look, here’s footage from my suit camera.” He snagged a cable out of the sleeve of his suit and plugged it into a console.

  Callie joined him at the screen and frowned. She knew the contours of the White Raven well, and there was something bulbous, made of glass and metal and shaped like a bathysphere, clinging to the underside near one of the energy weapons. She was pretty sure it wasn’t part of the weapons upgrade Warwick had authorized; this was some
thing new. “What the fuck is that clinging to my ship? We got space barnacles now?”

  “It’s one of the boarding pods the Liar ship fired at us,” Ashok said. “I looked inside and it’s empty, but there’s a hole cut in our hull – the pod is acting as a patch, keeping the ship sealed.”

  “I thought we shot all those pods out of the sky.”

  “Me too, but we clearly missed one.”

  Callie looked around the room. “You’re telling me there’s a Liar somewhere on this ship? Where? Hiding in the walls?”

  “Seems likely, cap. No telling what it’s doing in there, either. Could be patched into the communication systems, listening to every word we say, which is why I’m doing all this super secret spy stuff.”

  Callie thought furiously, and then nodded. “This is good. I wanted to take one of them alive. I have many questions.”

  “Liars aren’t famed for their usefulness as interrogation subjects.”

  “Maybe no one’s ever asked them properly before.”

  “I’m pretty sure the various human militaries who have questioned the Liars over the years used every trick you know and a bunch you’re too good-hearted to even think of. Drugs don’t work on them, you can’t hypnotize them, torture is bad and anyway most Liars can control their pain sensors anyway,” he shrugged.

  Callie nodded. “We have evidence of a Liar conspiracy, though. The situation has changed. Once we get word to the authorities, their whole species will be treated as a hostile force. Hiding the bridge generators from us, and keeping us limited to twenty-nine systems like we’re children in a playpen, could be chalked up to their version of national security. But blowing up Meditreme Station to keep their conspiracy a secret? That’s a war crime. We’ll offer this squidling the chance to flip on its cohorts in exchange for not spending the rest of its short and unpleasant life in a Jovian Imperative black site.”

  Ashok shook his head. “Ugly business, but I guess that’s where we are. How do you propose we flush the little guy out?”

  “Unleash the repair bots. Get them scuttling through all the places too small for us to go. I’ll check the rest of the ship. Go quietly tell Stephen and Elena what’s going on so they can join in too. Give Elena a non-lethal sidearm.”

  “So, bug hunt?”

  “Bug hunt.”

  * * *

  The White Raven wasn’t big, but it wasn’t small, either. It was made for a crew of five to live comfortably, and since Drake and Janice shared quarters (and everything else), it coped just fine with six. Callie checked the galley, their quarters, and the cargo hold. Stephen did a thorough search of the infirmary, and Elena checked everywhere else, stalking through the corridors. The ship did a full diagnostic, but didn’t report any findings. They didn’t dare use the comms to discuss their search, in case the Liar was tapped in, but they kept up a seemingly innocuous stream of chatter that managed to reveal their respective locations as they moved around.

  In the end, it was the repair bots clambering through the walls of the ship that forced the Liar invader into the open. Elena was just coming out of the gym, near the bottom (or back) of the ship, when a vent covering came clattering off the wall and a dirty-white flurry of movement flew out of the opening, followed by a silvery, spidery repair bot in pursuit.

  Elena shrieked as the child-sized, multi-armed Liar in an environment suit spun and lurched wildly in her direction, flailing for purchase in the lack of gravity. It grabbed onto a handrail and stared at her from a cluster of various-sized eyes behind its faceplate. Elena pointed her sidearm at the alien just as the repair bot seized it and pinned its limbs.

  “I surrender without reservations.” The voice that emerged from the suit was feminine and full of resignation. “I wish to speak to your captain.”

  “I’m sure she’d like to talk to you, too,” Elena said. “Shall? I found our stowaway. Get everyone down here.”

  She looked at the alien for a long moment. She’d never seen one before, after all. The Liar had seven long appendages, arranged radially around its central trunk. It didn’t have a head as a domelike bulge on the top of its body. The Liar and its suit were essentially the same shape as the ship that had attacked them: a lumpy starfish with too many arms.

  “Why did you do it?” Elena said. “Why did you kill all those people?”

  “We were trying to save the universe,” the alien said. “I’ve been listening in on your communications. I heard your theory about a vast Liar conspiracy.” The alien let out a sound remarkably like a sigh. “You’re right, in a way, because there is a conspiracy. But you’re wrong about everything else. You think we’re hiding our secret mastery of the galaxy. In reality, we’re hiding something else. Something much worse.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  They took the Liar to the infirmary and strapped it down on an exam table. Binding an uncooperative Liar would have been a challenge, but their captive was docile as they tightened straps over its limbs.

  Stephen sat at his desk nearby, while Ashok and Elena hung back by the door. Callie locked her boots to the floor right in front of the table and looked at the Liar.

  “What are you planning to do to me?” it asked.

  Callie grinned, showing all her teeth.

  “I will not condone torture,” Stephen said. “As a doctor, I can’t.”

  “No torture,” Callie said. “I’m still a sworn officer of the TNA, and the Authority doesn’t condone torture. Mostly because it doesn’t work, and can even be counter-productive. No, we’re here for a trial.”

  “What?” the Liar squeaked.

  “State your name,” Callie said.

  “My name is pheromones and gestures, but when I need to communicate with humans, I go by Lantern. What do you mean, a trial?”

  “You committed a crime in Trans-Neptunian Space. I’m a security officer for Meditreme Station, and out here, wherever here is, that makes me the highest local law representing the Authority. I am authorized, in extreme circumstances, to conduct trials in the field. Our ship’s computer is available to assist you, as your advocate. Would you like to consult in private with your advocate?”

  The Liar’s bound tentacles wiggled like sine waves. “I do not recognize your authority over me.”

  “You don’t believe in the law? That’s OK. The law believes in you. Whether you recognize my authority or not, we’ll still throw you out an airlock if you’re found guilty. Ship, what are the charges against… do you have a preferred pronoun, Lantern?”

  “You can’t do this.”

  “The accused states no preference–”

  More thrashing, which suddenly subsided. “You may use ‘she’ and ‘her’.”

  Callie nodded. “That’s better than ‘it’, huh? Helps us anthropomorphize you, right? Makes you seem like you’re one of us, so we’ll be more merciful. It’s worth a try. Ship, what are the charges against her?”

  “Fifty thousand, one hundred and seventeen counts of premeditated murder. Destruction of TNA property valued in excess of one hundred billion lix. Piracy. Trespassing.”

  “How many of those are capital crimes?”

  “The murder and the piracy, captain. There are fifty thousand, one hundred and eighteen charges that potentially carry the death penalty.”

  “We are not pirates,” Lantern said.

  Callie clucked her tongue. “Demonstrably untrue. You forcibly boarded another ship, without any authority to do so. That’s piracy. We can put that charge aside, though. I doubt we’ll even get to it; no reason to charge you for littering when you’re already being executed for murder, after all. Prosecution, make your case.”

  “We have recorded evidence of the destruction of Meditreme Station,” the ship said. “We have recordings of the spokesperson from your ship confessing to causing that destruction. We have simulations that indicate the attack could have only come from your ship, as there were no other vessels in the vicinity.”

  “Defense?” Callie said. “Do you h
ave anything to refute that evidence or call any of those assertions into question?”

  “Certainly,” the ship said.

  “Wait!” Lantern stirred restlessly. “How can the ship be the prosecution and the defense?”

  “Computers are very smart, and good at compartmentalizing,” Callie said. “Now shut up.”

  “The confession is inadmissible,” the ship said. “Liar testimony is never considered credible, and is automatically dismissed. The existence of technology like the bridge generator on this very vessel means that another ship could have destroyed Meditreme Station and then escaped through a bridge, undetected, before we arrived, perhaps even to intentionally frame the Liars. We also have no direct evidence that this Liar came from the same ship that attacked us: she could have been hiding on board since Meditreme Station, or earlier, despite the presence of this purported ‘boarding pod.’ The case against the defendant is purely circumstantial.”

  Callie nodded. “I’ll take that under consideration. Lantern the Liar, do you have anything to say in your own defense? Not that it matters, since Liar testimony is assumed to be false by definition, but giving you the opportunity to speak is a necessary formality before I pass judgment and sentence you.”

  “I am not Lantern the Liar,” the Liar said. “I am Lantern the Truth-Teller. I am Lantern-Who-Remembers. I do not lie.”

  “All Liars lie.”

  “We have our reasons,” Lantern said. “The clouds of falsehoods that surround us are a great comfort, because they distract us from a truth too painful to contemplate. But some of my people are tasked with upholding the truth, remembering our past, and safeguarding our future against the very threats the rest of us are desperate to forget. I am a member of the truth-telling tribe, as were the others on the ship your Axiom artifact destroyed.” She shifted in the restraints. “Surely you can admit that my people do not lie about everything. Otherwise we would be useless to you as technicians and engineers, and impossible as trading partners. In most everyday interactions, we do not lie about anything that impacts our ability to negotiate and work with and live alongside humans. Can we stipulate to that?”