Orphans of Earth

by Sean Williams

  Axford held his gaze for a handful of seconds longer, then released it with a slight nod of his head. He returned his attention to the Yuhl. “Okay, this is what we’re prepared to do,” he said. “We’ll split our ship and one of us will come over there with one of your friends here. Then, if things go well and my crewmate returns unharmed, we will release the second one to you.”

  The delay in response was even longer this time.

  THE PRAXIS IS SATISFIED.

  YOU MAY PROCEED TO [UNKNOWN].

  “And just what the hell is that?”

  “I think that last part was meant to be dock,” said Axford. “But there’s no literal equivalent. Perhaps what they mean is—”

  He stopped when he saw the appearance of the giant vessel begin to change, as hundreds of black bumps suddenly emerged and started to skim the bright surface. Axford zoomed in closer and revealed them to be hundreds of hole ship cockpits of varying sizes, all of them modified to some degree or another by the Yuhl technology. Some were encrusted with growths like the ones they’d already seen; others trailed flexible threads dozens of meters long that left glowing streaks in empty space; still others were bulbous shapes formed by combining many ordinary cockpits into one structure. One such Alander estimated to have been built from at least fifty cockpits. The interior must have been large enough to hold a couple of hundred people.

  “Peter?” said Axford. It was only when Alander heard his name that he realized he’d been asked something.

  “Huh?”

  “I said that you’ll have to merge the central portions but keep the cockpits separate. I’m guessing this is what they want us to do, anyway.”

  “Is that safe?” Alander asked. “I mean, will we be able to leave?”

  Axford shrugged heavily. “Your guess is as good as mine, I’m afraid,” he said. He studied Alander for a couple of moments. “Are you having second thoughts?”

  Alander stared at the screen, at the massive construct formed from centuries of predation on Spinner contactees. He didn’t dare believe that they’d show him or humanity any more compassion than they’d shown others, but at the same time he supposed it was worth the risk. Here was a chance to increase humanity’s resources and knowledge exponentially. Plus, forming some sort of strategic alliance, even if it didn’t go as far as the one Axford desired, could indeed make all the difference between survival and extinction. When seen in that context, personal sacrifice was an acceptable risk. More so: it was a necessary one.

  He shook his head, but he could tell even as he did it that it lacked conviction. “I’m okay,” he lied. “And I guess we shouldn’t keep them waiting.”

  Axford gestured to their alien captives. “Which one do you want?”

  Alander automatically indicated the passive one. “I’ll take him,” he said. “Or her. Whatever.”

  Axford nodded his approval. “Good choice.”

  The aggressive alien stared balefully at them, its masklike face completely unreadable, as a second force wall divided the cockpit into quarters. A tremor ran through Alander’s feet as the union of the two cockpits began to reverse. The walls puckered and began to stretch along the half containing himself and his captive, leaving him with one of the screens and the alien version of the couch. The tremor became more noticeable as the floor formed a lip and began to pull apart. It was like watching a recording of cell division—from the inside.

  “Call me if you need to,” said Axford. “If I don’t hear from you within an hour of docking, I’ll assume the worst.”

  “Then what?” Alander asked.

  “Then I kill this one and go for reinforcements.”

  Alander noted that his words were being translated for the benefit of both their passengers. A wall was forming between the two cockpits, stretching like taffy to separate their interiors.

  “Don’t do anything hasty,” Alander put in quickly as the wall closed in.

  “Or you, Peter,” said Axford with a nervous half smile.

  Then he was gone, and the tremor became a faint rocking sensation as the one craft became two. Watching on the main screen, Alander studied the separation with fascination. The material the ships were made of was so fluid, an impressive demonstration of the superiority of the Spinners’ technology. And this was, he reminded himself, the stuff they gave away! The hole ships were like plastic building blocks given to a young child, a toy with which they couldn’t possibly harm themselves. And from that perspective, the giant ship before him—the Mantissa, if Axford’s translation was correct—was little more than a building block castle. It didn’t necessarily show any greater understanding of the technology than humans already possessed. The Yuhl had simply had longer to gather the blocks and put them together.

  Remembering the language issue, Alander decided to test out his ship’s own translation capabilities.

  “Do you understand what we’re doing?” he asked the Yuhl in the cell next to his.

  “I am returning to Praxis/alone.” The reply was surprisingly clear, although Alander reminded himself that there might be subtleties to terms like Praxis that Axford’s arbitrary translation might hide. The alien’s expression shifted so that the black lines on its face resembled a geometrical Japanese gigaku mask. “This was not supposed to be different.”

  “Why not?” he started, but was confused by the two separate statements. “I mean, how? Different in what way”

  The alien didn’t reply.

  “Do you always travel in pairs?” Alander persisted.

  The alien’s reply appeared on the screen.

  ONLY THE [UNKNOWN].

  Without Axford to work on the translation, Alander was forced to do the research himself. Using basic conSense tools, the most he could handle without risking disorientation, he took the undecipherable term and teased it apart. The components of the double sound had meanings relating to servitude and bureaucracy, and the English word that first came to mind was hierodule, the name for a temple slave in ancient Greece. It was, however, often associated with temple prostitutes, so he settled on helot instead, another Greek term referring to unfree men of a higher status than the lowest possible slave.

  “Do the helots have names?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He touched his chest. “My name is—”

  “Peter/Alander” said the alien. Plates on its face shifted back and forth in quick succession.

  A nod? Alander thought.

  “Caryl/Hatzis told us/me earlier.”

  The sound of his own name and Hatzis’s in the alien dialect surprised Alander. He hadn’t been sure that the alien was paying attention back then. At that point, the more aggressive of the two had been dominating proceedings.

  “Then what is your name?”

  There was a long pause. The alien moved to its couch and sat astride it, its head moving in an unusual manner. A strange whistling noise came from both its vocal chords; since the ship’s AI didn’t offer a translation, Alander assumed the sound was the Yuhl equivalent of humming or some other meaningless conversation filler.

  When it stopped, though, the alien looked up, and the lines on its face were aligned in a series of near-perfect squares.

  “Ueh/Ellil,” it said.

  “Ueh Ellil, huh?” The first name sounded like Huey without the H and with a more guttural vowel at the end. “Well, Ueh, I’m...”

  What? Pleased to make your acquaintance? Awed to be in the presence of an alien species? Christ, what was he supposed to say to this creature? Ever since the arrival of the Spinners and the Starfish, he’d been pondering the existence of aliens. But to actually be standing in front of a real, live flesh-and-blood one was something he was finding very hard to get his head around.

  Before he could decide, Axford’s face appeared in the cockpit screen, and his voice came over the hole ship’s communications systems: “Okay, Peter, we’re fully separated, and you should now have control over Silent Liquidity. I duplicated the Mercury’s AI when it spl
it into yours, so it should have everything this ship does.”

  Alander frowned. “Silent Liquidity? That’s its name?”

  Axford lifted his shoulders. “According to the Mercury’s translation,” he said. “I guess the Roaches aren’t averse to a little pretension.”

  “Either that or they appreciate the tactical importance of these ships.” He shrugged himself. “Whatever. You say I should have access to everything your ship does now?”

  Axford nodded. “Except that I removed everything about Vega,” he said. “And I suggest you do the same for your colony worlds. You never know what they might use it for.”

  “To be perfectly honest,” Alander said, “I don’t blame you, but I’m not going to follow your example. I’ve got nothing to hide from these people.”

  “They’re not people, Peter.”

  “No, they’re not,” he said. “I imagine they’d resent such a comparison.”

  “Very funny,” said Axford flatly.

  “I’m serious, actually.” Alander hadn’t closed off communications between him and his Yuhl passenger, but Ueh/Ellil stayed perfectly silent. His attitude was frozen, as if he was almost afraid to move. “They’re significantly more advanced than us. Think about it: they’ve been traveling through space long before we nailed Christ to the cross.”

  “As scavengers, though,” said Axford. “Don’t forget that.”

  Alander dismissed the matter with a shake of his head. It wasn’t the time to be entering into such an argument. Certainly not with Axford, either. The man clearly had his feelings on these aliens, and no amount of arguing was going to sway him from that opinion.

  “Have the Roaches given you any instructions about docking yet?” asked Axford.

  Alander knew that referring to the Yuhl/Goel as Roaches was the ex-general’s way of having the last word on the matter, dismissing the aliens as little more than insects, but he didn’t rise to the bait.

  “Nothing yet.”

  “Then tell Liquidity what you want to do and see what happens.”

  Alander nodded. “Wish me luck.”

  “I don’t believe in luck, Peter,” he said.

  No, thought Alander, you wouldn’t.

  “Silent Liquidity? I want you to dock with the Mantissa,” he instructed. “But I need you to keep our cockpit separate. Do not allow any form of intrusion unless I authorize it. Understood?”

  “Understood, Peter.” The hole ship’s voice was the same as all the others’: smooth and melodic without sounding artificially so. He wondered if it sounded the same to a Yuhl’s ears.

  Before the screen showing the Mantissa went black, he caught one last glimpse of the massive vessel hanging before him. Its incredible size staggered him, as did the perfect smoothness of its surface. It looked like a giant, ivory marble. Only the constant dance of the swarming cockpits—some of them skimming the surface in rapid, swooping arcs, others drifting lazily several kilometers above the surface—gave it any form of identity. The blacks specks created patterns that formed and faded like bees crawling across a hive.

  Then, absently, the hole ship was relocating, and it was too late to turn back.

  What have you got yourself into this time, truth seeker? he asked himself.

  1.2.5

  The Spinners may not have visited Sothis, but evidence of their gifts was everywhere. The tragedies resulting from the Starfish sneak attacks were uniting and mobilizing the human remnant much more quickly than Hatzis had expected—or hoped—prompting a convergence on Sirius that she hadn’t dreamed would occur for weeks yet.

  There were over a dozen hole ships in parking orbit above McKenzie Base, taking part in a crisis meeting that spanned 150 light-years. Their names reflected the interests of the people who had discovered them, ranging from the purely descriptive (such as Soap Bubble and Cue Ball) to the biological (Oosphere and Egg). The notion of mythical spinners and weavers touched upon by Arachne was revived again by Klotho; legend also brought forth the names of numerous culture-givers, among them Huang-di, Prometheus, and Koyote. The newest edition was from the colony rescued by Alander, Thor, and Francis Axford in 61 Ursa Major; its freshly minted hole ship had been dubbed Kirsty for no clear reason Sol could see, although she suspected that the senescence of Hera’s mission supervisor, Tarsem Jones, might have had something to do with it.

  Sol parked Arachne in its usual dock. Gou Mang, whom she had left in charge during her absence, had had the sense to leave it free. The rest was clearly beyond her, however.

  The hole ships above had ferried their physical passengers to McKenzie Base’s rarely used conference room, while their human pilots—most of them copies of herself—were currently doing nothing but waiting. The first thing Sol did was organize a rotating roster enabling them to jump to random broadcast points in order to relay the events on Sothis to the rest of surveyed space. The number of inbound transmissions was rising; there had to be some sort of response to quell the developing panic.

  She ensured that the link to Arachne was clear, then went to join the meeting. Strictly speaking, her physical presence wasn’t required, but she knew it would have an impact. Since the destruction of her home, she had rarely left the security of her hole ship. As she strode along the tubular access ways to the conference, she adjusted her outfit to reflect the severity of the situation, changing from an imitation UNESSPRO shipsuit to a black and gray ensemble cut in the style of a 2050 business suit.

  When the door opened on the conference room, the sound of voices greeted her like a slap in the face. In the three weeks since the destruction of the Vincula, she had rarely met anyone in person apart from Peter Alander. The engrams ran as simulations in virtual worlds; only in recent times had the impetus to house minds in permanent physical bodies become more urgent. The need to be mobile, and therefore able to escape if necessary, was now a priority—especially for the people Sol considered absolutely necessary. These naturally included the various versions of her scattered across the colonies, as well as those individuals contacted by the Spinners to act as interfaces with the Gifts. Unfortunately, it also included some of the mission supervisors with whom she would have preferred not to have to deal directly.

  When she entered, all noise in the room abruptly ceased, but the argument she had clearly interrupted still simmered in the air. The pressure of eyes suddenly on her was an almost physical force that made her feel immediately uncomfortable. In total, there were only twenty people in the room, but at that moment, it felt like a multitude to her.

  ‘Thank you for joining us here,” she said without preamble, as though she had been the one that had requested the meeting. “I came as soon as I could.”

  “Where have you been?” challenged Otto Wyra of Pan straightaway. “Why weren’t you here when you were needed?”

  She met his accusation squarely. “There’s simply too much work to do and not enough people to do it. I can’t be everywhere at once. As impressive as the hole ships are, they can’t perform miracles; they may get us to our destinations quicker, but they certainly can’t provide instantaneous transportation.”

  “But—”

  “I’m only human, Otto,” she said firmly. “Please remember that.”

  He spluttered into silence. Only human was something he could never hope to be. Even in a flesh-and-blood android body, he was still just an engram. They were all engrams, apart from her, a fact that wasn’t lost on them— nor one would she ever let them forget.

  “I was busy observing an attack on a new colony,” she explained. “As Tarsem may already have told you, Hera, our latest addition, engaged a third alien species seeking to obtain its gifts by force. There can be no doubt that this species is the source of anomalous encounters in colonies such as Perendi; they are also responsible for the death markers found wherever the Starfish have struck. It turns out that some of these strikes have been deliberately encouraged by this new race in an attempt to cover up their thefts.” She stared levelly around the room
. “It may or may not be something you particularly want to hear right now, given everything else that has been happening, but the fact of the matter is, my friends, that we are being preyed upon.” She shrugged.

  “That is what I have to report. I hope you will appreciate that I haven’t been wasting time.”

  Her gaze settled meaningfully on Otto Wyra as she said this last part. He looked away uncomfortably.

  “Now.” she went on, “I’ve personally interviewed members of this alien race and will share that data with you later. But first I want to know what’s going on here. You were discussing some issues when I came in...”

  She let the sentence trail off as an invitation for someone to elaborate.

  “There’s only one issue,” said Wyra, looking up at her again. “The Starfish. They’re picking us off one by one.”

  Sol nodded. “And what do you suggest we do about it?”

  This time it was Ali Genovese of Diana that spoke. “That’s what we’re here to work out.”

  Sol faced her. “And what have you come up with so far?”

  “We have three options,” she said evenly. “One: we do nothing.”

  “Which would be tantamount to suicide,” Wyra pointed out irritably.

  “Two,” Genovese went on without addressing his comment. “We move.”

  Sol frowned. “But where?”

  “That’s the problem,” said Genovese, nodding. “The Starfish seem to be scouring surveyed space reasonably thoroughly, but they tend to concentrate around the loci containing their most recent kills. That is, every time a colony slips through our fingers and uses the communicators, they jump elsewhere. That’s how the colonies neighboring Athena managed to escape, we think. If the Starfish had been truly thorough, they’d be dead now.”

  “Thank God for small mercies,” breathed Donald Schievenin of Fujin, one of the spared worlds.