Two days after we entered trans-space, the second pilot replaced the senior pilot at the evening meal. He didn’t look that much older than Leysa, in bio-years, anyway. At that thought, I realized that, in all probability, my ungrateful daughter was now older, in bio-years, than I was. Somehow, that didn’t give me much satisfaction. It just depressed me, although I couldn’t say why, and I definitely didn’t want to explore those feelings at the moment.
Like the senior pilot, Aelanzo was gracious, in between carefully spaced bites on the platter in front of him.
Larissa asked what it was like to look at trans-space from the bridge.
He just smiled. “We don’t look out that way. The lights and patterns move so fast they’re a dark gray. If we traveled more slowly, they’d just give anyone a headache. In the early days, when the ships weren’t as fast and before pilots relied on screens, they gave some pilots epileptic seizures.”
“Don’t you worry we might hit something?”
Beyond Larissa, one of the passengers who talked almost not at all—Torgan Brad—winced.
I wondered why, since that hadn’t been a problem for decades, if not centuries.
“That’s why we have to get clear of systems. We plot courses on low-matter trajectories, and the trans-fields bend around small amounts of matter.”
“What’s a small amount of matter?”
“Most planets.”
“Do you just travel back and forth from Bachman to Stittara?”
“No. Every ley-liner has a multiple-stop flight plan. Our next port after Stittara will be Hayek…”
“How long have you been with Ceylesian Transport?” asked Lars, preempting his wife’s next question.
“Eleven years. Bio-years.”
He looked younger than he was. Maybe CT picked them for that.
“How many years of training?”
“Only six months. I spent a tour as a Unity Alliance courier pilot.”
A hotshot military courier pilot. No wonder he only needed six months’ training, and like all of them, he used the official title of Unity Alliance, rather than Space Service, the old name that almost everyone else used.
“That must have been exciting.”
Second Pilot Aelanzo smiled. “I really can’t talk about that.”
On the other side of the table, Torgan Brad gave the smallest nod.
In the momentary silence that followed, I asked, “Do pilots have collateral duties when they’re not piloting?”
Lars and Larissa looked at me as if I’d been wearing an emergency evac suit. Aimee smiled politely.
“Yes, we do. I’m the purser, and the senior pilot is also the navigator. Every crew member on board has several duties.”
At that point, the two stewards began to remove the main course and to serve dessert, a variation on a Reaganian Crème.
Later, before Aelanzo excused himself, I waited until Rob Gybl finished asking him a question about the frequency of singularity-interrupted trips—the answer was less than one in a thousand transits, none with fatalities in the last two hundred years—then moved in.
“Do you see many passengers time and time again? I mean, for example, are there people onboard that have traveled with you before?”
“I’ve seen two that I recall since I’ve been with Ceylesian. No one in several years. Now … if you would excuse me…”
“Thank you … I just wondered.”
I still wondered at the specificity of his answer. He hadn’t seen any out of our current passengers, but that didn’t mean that someone onboard wasn’t traveling often between Bachman and Stittara.
At that, I almost shook my head. Even if someone were concerned about me and my assignment, it was far more likely that the ship just carried a message to someone in the Survey Service on Stittara … or to an already placed intelligence type there. That made far more sense. Besides, given the time-delay between my departure and the soonest my report could possibly return, why would anyone bother?
Except … if no one cared, why had someone created the proposal and sent me?
Maybe it was just personal ego, but I had trouble believing that the System Survey Service would spend millions of duhlars on a throwaway political gesture.
Then … we all want to believe what we do is important. I tried to tell myself that was all my concerns were based on, most likely because it had been all too clear that Chelesina had thought very little of me. Nor had Leysa.
Still … I did shake my head, but after I left the dining chamber.
“Shaking your head at the pilot’s efforts at diplomacy, Dr. Verano?”
I looked over to see Rikard Spek standing by the archway into the salon. We hadn’t really met, but I’d picked up his name in passing and gathered he had a scientific background. “Not at his diplomacy, Dr. Spek. Not at that. Would you care to join me to while away some time?” I gestured toward the salon.
“Why not?” Spek offered a good-natured, almost lazy smile. He was a big man, a good fifteen centimeters taller than I, and broad across the shoulders.
We were among the first into the salon and took the corner table that offered the best view of the wallscreen that displayed a series of vistas of the Arm from various locales in Unity space. They’d been striking for the first week or so. I settled into the chair at an angle to the wallscreen. Spek took the other one. He didn’t even glance at the screen, either.
“Why are you headed to Stittara?” I asked. “Research?”
“More of an application of that research.”
“Can you tell me the general nature of that application?”
He grinned and shook his head.
“So, are you like all the other science types aboard, involved in biologics?”
“I wouldn’t be able to pick out protozoa from a giant bacterium.” He laughed. “My background is high-energy physics. Leave it at that.”
“You from Bachman?”
He nodded, then looked to the steward. “The usual.”
“Pale lager,” I added.
“Very good, sers.”
“What about you?” Spek asked.
“Smithsen.”
“I understand you’re an ecological consultant. You must be very good.”
“Well … good enough for someone to pay to send me out … but that goes even more for you.”
He shook his head. “Very little new in my field in years. It was time to look at things from a different angle. Haven’t you noticed that the pace of scientific development has slowed?”
“It started slowing right after the dawn of the space age back on ancient Terra,” I pointed out. “All the easier problems were solved, and the costs of research on each new generation of challenges increased geometrically.”
“In a way, I envy you, Paulo. You can use the same tools on a different ecology and make new and fascinating discoveries. The building blocks of the universe don’t change no matter where you are.”
I had to think about that for a moment. But, in a general sense, he was right. Each ecology was different, while, in general, the universe stayed the same. Still … “But isn’t each system, each nebula, each stellar unity somewhat different? The arrangement of bodies around a sun or suns? How is that different? You use tools, and we use tools, and few of those tools are based on startlingly new principles…”
“How about the fact that none of our tools are based on such startlingly new principles?” His laugh was genial enough, if with a certain resignation behind it. “From what I’ve read about your field, there’s more variety on any one planet with a developed ecology than there is in the mass/energy/dark matter structure of an entire galaxy.”
I shrugged. “I can’t address that. I don’t know your field … but there are quite a few worlds with astoundingly simple ecologies that never developed beyond a basic stage. Complex ecologies are comparatively infrequent, and intelligent life is still statistically exceedingly rare.”
“Whose rarity is overcompensated fo
r by its proclivity to expand everywhere,” he pointed out sardonically.
I laughed and waited for the steward to set my lager on the table before I took a small swallow. Whatever Spek was drinking was pale pink and looked fruity, but I wasn’t about to ask. “Where did you do your grad work?”
“The Institute. Where else is there on Bachman?”
I wasn’t about to comment on the fact that a great percentage of science types on Bachman came from elsewhere, a fact attributed to the heavy hand of the Deniers on pure scientific studies.
“What about you?” he returned.
I grinned. “Solara as an undergrad. Institute for the doctorate.”
“Are the girls at Solara…” he ventured.
“Only a very few,” I replied. And I’d had the misfortune or stupidity to marry one of them, even if it had been years later. “The rest are like undergrads anywhere. Believe me … that’s better.”
“I don’t know,” he said, again offering that genial lazy smile. “There are some myths worth believing in, especially regarding women.”
“Perhaps.” I still had my doubts about that. “But there are myths about everything worth believing in … like the idea that we’ll be able to discover the actual source of life … or the universe.”
“You think those are myths?”
“Right now, they’re myths. For as long as we’ve been in space, no one still can prove where the universe came from. What if we’re not capable of discovering that?”
“Then”—he nodded—“you’re right. It’s better to have myths.”
I hadn’t said that, and I wasn’t certain I even agreed, but I nodded and took another swallow of lager.
7
The Persephonya left trans-space just before the evening meal, while I was sitting in the chamber that passed for the standard-class lounge talking to a young couple, a good twenty years younger than I was, bio-age, of course. Both were techies. She was a biologist. He was a biochemist, and both had been hired by Syntex, one of the original biologics multis on Stittara.
For a moment or so, I didn’t realize that we’d left trans-space, only that I’d felt disoriented for a moment, until the captain announced, “The ship is now in norm-space and proceeding to Stittara. Our estimated time of system transit will be four days.”
Considering the fact that it had taken eight days to get far enough from Bachman to enter trans-space, four didn’t seem all that bad.
That gave me four more days to see if I could discover who might have been sent with me, for whatever purpose that might be. I doubted that I’d find out any more in four days than in the three weeks of personally experienced time that the trip had already taken, but it couldn’t hurt to keep my eyes and ears open. Even if I could determine who was watching me, assuming anyone was, what exactly could I do onboard ship? I’d been doing the only thing I could, and that was to step up my practice on the old Juchai martial arts routines, those that I hadn’t practiced with or against anyone in years. At the same time, I consoled myself by asking what they could do without getting caught.
I couldn’t really believe that anyone cared to watch me, but the strangeness of how my contract had occurred left me suspicious. More likely, even if someone had been co-opted, they were just information couriers who would relay information about me to others groundside on Stittara, who would then decide to act, or not to, in one fashion or another. In fact, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that several individuals might have been used for that purpose, all reporting to different local entities, all of which had differing agendas and priorities.
At the same time, I had to say that I wondered about Torgan Brad, if not for that reason. He was pleasant enough, in his world-weary monosyllabic way, but he didn’t fit any category or reason for a Ministry employee or contractor being sent to Stittara … or any outland world. He was too old to be a bureaucratic émigré and too polite and tactful to be a troubleshooter of the standard sort, and any other sort was likely to be dangerous.
So I smiled politely at Holly Peppard and said, “Did you feel it?”
“That dizzy-like feeling? Was that what it feels like to leave trans-space?”
“That’s the mild feeling.” The few other times I’d left trans-space had been years ago, before I’d met Chelesina the second time and married her, and the trips had only been a few light-years. The disorientation had been far more severe, and I wondered if it had to do with the proximity of more gravity wells.
Georg Golitely frowned. “You’d think that after all the thousands of years of trans-space travel someone could have figured out how to eliminate that altogether.”
“In the early days,” I offered, “ships were twisted apart at times. Mild disorientation represents great progress.”
“Still…” He shook his head. “They ought to be able to do something.”
Georg was a scientific type who felt there was a technical answer for everything. I liked his wife better, and not merely because she was a woman, although I had to admit that was part of it. I’ve always liked women. Too bad I’d exercised such poor judgment when it counted.
“Do you have any idea what you’ll be doing at Syntex?” I’d asked before, but he’d had three of what passed for pale ales, and he might not remember my question.
“They never told me. Never told Holly, either. Oh … it has to be something to do with the biochemistry of grasses on the nanetic level—or something similar.”
“That was what his thesis was on,” added Holly brightly.
“And what about you?”
“Lichens. They’re fascinating…”
As she went on to tell me about lichens—with an occasional prompting question from me—I realized I’d never heard much about grasses in connection with Stittara, except as being the basis of the ecosystem, since trees and other large arboreal flora and fauna were comparatively rare. Oh, there were certainly studies about the grasses, but most of the data and studies were on the comparatively ground-hugging foliage, largely in mountainous regions, and the fact that both reptilian and marsupial analogues had never evolved into large herbivores or carnivores. I’d already noted that in my background work, with questions as to why and what the relationships were … and the fact that those issues didn’t appear at all in the material filed with the Systems Survey Service in Bachman … or presumably anywhere else off Stittara.
When Holly finished with the lichens, I did ask, “What’s the nutrient load for Stittaran grasses and lichens?”
“I don’t know. There’s nothing on that. Why do you ask?”
“There aren’t any large fauna. There doesn’t seem to be any evolutionary record of any.”
“You’re wondering if that’s because…”
I nodded.
She pursed her lips. “That’s an interesting idea, but there’s also the possibility that there are other factors … atmospheric factors…”
“The skytubes?” I asked. Because the skytubes were far more sinuous in their movements than the waterspouts and tornadoes on water worlds, many had speculated if they had an organic basis, or might have a low-level intelligence. Most scientists felt that anything else was unlikely because an atmospheric-based organism had to be so dispersed to remain airborne that even low-level intelligence was impossible. I tended to agree, but the question would doubtless come up. Of course, were the skytubes intelligent, the Unity would have had to turn Stittara over to them, but centuries of observation had shown nothing along that line.
“And the winds.”
“Not to mention that there’s not been much work done on the biochemical basis of the ecosystems,” added Georg.
“Well … none’s appeared off Stittara,” I pointed out.
The couple exchanged glances, as if I’d brought up the unthinkable, that good scientific research had either been ignored or suppressed.
“It has happened,” I said gently. “The multis usually aren’t that interested in pursuing science that doesn’t lead
to profit.”
“Paulo,” interrupted another feminine voice, “are you attempting to corrupt these idealistic young people?”
I looked up at Aimee Vanslo. “Would you join us?”
“I would, but the grande dame should be here in a moment to escort me to dine with those too refined to mingle here.”
“The grande dame?” I knew who she meant, but I wanted to hear what Aimee might say.
“Constantia Dewers, in her present incarnation.” With a bright smile meant to be false, she nodded and moved on.
Holly and Georg looked slightly bewildered, and that was probably for the best.
“What else can you tell me about what grasses might be like on Stittara?” I prompted.
In the end, I discovered that, overall, I knew more than they did, but that was fine. They were young, and they’d learn.
8
The administrative director scanned the screen, then looked up. “The Unity’s finally sent an investigator.”
“An investigator?”
“Don’t be silly. Even the densest of Arm politicians wouldn’t announce it that way. He’s one of the top ecologists on Bachman. Possibly the best of the independents, according to Vergenya. His name is Paulo Verano.”
“A true ecologist sent from Bachman? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.”
“There are some. Not all are throwbacks to the Deniers. He was sent by a SoMod government.”
“The SoMods are back in power?”
“They have been for the last few elections, but barely, she says.”
“Is that why he’s coming here? Because he’s actually supposed to do something? Or because he’s caused trouble for the Deniers, and they want him out-system? A SoMod concession to the Deniers? Or a plant by Vergenya’s superiors.”
“More mundane than that. The first speaker is fending the Deniers off. He needs to claim he’s done something to keep a very slim majority. He needed someone with absolutely no political connections or ties. Verano has none. He’s never even worked for a known Denier-linked outfit. Most of his assets went to an ex, with a multi-year readjustment. He needed the bonus, and he was available.”
The One-Eyed Man Page 3
