Spindrift

by Allen Steele

  “This is how our own starbridges work,” Emily said. “Yes, I understand.”

  “Then you understand how such coordinates would be invaluable to both friend and foe alike.” Jas paused. “A race would be unwise to share such information freely, or at least without knowing the intentions of a newly discovered race.”

  “In this case, our own.” Ramirez nodded slowly. “That would make sense.”

  “Pleased to know that you understand, Dr. Ramirez.” Jas’s head swiveled toward him. “One of the Precepts…the Talus constitution, if you wish to call it that…states that no member race is required to relinquish the coordinates of its home system’s starbridge to another race until both have negotiated agreements regarding security, commerce, and cultural exchange. Furthermore, no newly discovered races will be given coordinates to any member of the Talus until that race has been inducted into the Talus…”

  “And we’re not ready to join the club yet,” Ramirez said.

  “No. Not yet.” Jas hesitated, as if picking hisher words carefully, and once again Emily was struck by how reticent heshe could be. Apparently the hjadd, as friendly as they might seem, were guarded about what they shared with other races. “We know the coordinates of your starbridge at 47 Ursae Majoris. They have been entered into your ship’s guidance system. Once your craft makes the jump, the coordinates for the Talus qua’spah will be automatically eradicated from its memory, eliminating any chance that humankind will be able retrace its steps here. In that way, our security will be assured…or at least until we are prepared to trust you.”

  “But…” Emily shook her head. “Why not Earth? That’s our homeworld, after all.”

  “To demonstrate that we have no intentions of invading your own planet. Trust should be mutually achieved.” Jas gazed at her with what seemed to be infinite patience. “This is only the prelude to first contact among our races. Your colony affords us a neutral meeting place. Until then, though, we have much to learn about one another. Which is why we ask you to be our intermediaries.”

  An immense weight settled upon Emily’s shoulders. She glanced at Ted, then at Jared; even without their saying so, she knew from the expressions on their faces that they felt the impact of hisher words.

  “That’s…you ask m uch of us,” Harker stammered. “We barely understand your race, or the Talus. You probably don’t know much about us, either. We can’t…”

  “Of course not.” Again, a stuttering hiss that may have been a laugh. “This is why I am making the journey with you.”

  “You’re…?” Harker’s mouth f ell open. “We don’t…I mean, we can’t…”

  “As I said earlier, I have been designated the Prime Emissary. This is why I have taken the effort personally to introduce myself to you.” Jas waved a hand toward the window. “As for my accommodations, your craft has already been refurbished to suit my requirements.”

  “But…” Emily shook her head. “If you can’t return, then how can we…?”

  “If your kind wishes to join the Talus, it will find the ways and means to construct suitable dwellings.” Again, the hjadd hesitated. “The risk is mine to assume. Your race may choose to murder me, just as your Captain Lawrence attempted to destroy our ship…”

  “That was an accident,” Harker insisted.

  “Then I will discover if that is so and not simply the reaction of a hostile and immature species.” Heshe paused. “Will you accept me and our offer for contact? Or should we simply send you back to your own kind and regard your race as one best left alone?”

  Emily started to open her mouth, then realized that she couldn’t speak for the others. Instead, she looked around at Ted, then Jared. The three of them studied one another for a few moments; for once, no one argued.

  “We accept,” Harker said at last, then he paused. “But…”

  “Yes?” Jas’s faceplate moved toward him. “A question?”

  “If we’re supposed to supply accommodations for you once we reach Coyote…47 Ursae Majoris, that is…then how can we…?” He shook his head. “How can we feed you, for starters?”

  The hjadd made a snuffling sound that Emily was at loss to interpret. “Our organisms aren’t as dissimilar as you might believe,” heshe said. “When we found your craft, we discovered within it a sample of a vegetable substance that we found quite palatable, even stimulating.” Reaching into a pocket of hisher suit, Jas groped for something. “In fact, we believe this may prove to be a major source of trade between our races.”

  Coffee, Emily thought. They must have found our coffee supply. “I’m sure that can be arranged,” she said. “It’s something that we grow in abundance, so we shouldn’t have…”

  Her voice trailed off as Jas withdrew a familiar plastic canister. Harker’s face became almost as red as the patterns of his robe, and Ramirez’s robe assumed an aquamarine hue that suited the grin that crept across his face, as the hjadd carefully opened the canister and allowed a few precious flakes of cannabis to fall into the palm of hisher glove.

  “Delicious,” Jas said. “May we have more?”

  The propulsion and navigation systems weren’t the only things different about the Maria Celeste. As soon as she walked up the ramp, Emily saw that the entire aft compartment had been rebuilt. Where there had once been four emergency biostasis cells now lay an airtight bulkhead separating the rear of the shuttle from the cockpit. A small hatch, just the right height for a hjadd but short enough that an average-size human would have to bend in order to enter it, had been placed in the center of the bulkhead.

  “My cabin,” Jas said, as if an explanation was necessary. “Many apologies for the alterations made by my people, but they were necessary.”

  “Understandable. You’ll need a place to live, after all.” Emily ducked her head to peer through the open hatch. On the other side of what appeared to be a closet-size airlock lay a small stateroom; she spotted what looked like a child-size waterbed, along with a wing chair and a miniature desk. It was even more cramped than her cabin aboard the Galileo. “Rather tight, don’t you think?”

  “My people are accustomed to close surroundings. Its life-support system will sustain me almost indefinitely, or at least until more satisfactory shelter is provided by your colony.” Heshe hesitated. “Please refrain from entering my quarters. I consider my privacy to be important to the success of my mission.”

  “Of course.” Harker stood off to one side, his arms folded together across his sha. “You’re accepting a lot on faith, aren’t you? We can’t even be sure how they’ll react to us, let alone you.”

  “Then this will be an interesting journey for all of us.” Turning away from hisher cabin, Jas gestured toward the cockpit. “My belongings have already been placed aboard. If you are ready, then we will make our departure.”

  Startled, Emily stared at himher. “Now? That’s it?”

  “Certainly.” The hjadd’s helmet rose slightly upon hisher neck. “Is there a reason why we should not go?”

  “Isn’t there anyone you need to see before you leave?” Harker glanced toward the ramp. “A last meeting with your…um, High Council, maybe. Farewells to any family and friends.”

  The hjadd said nothing for a moment “No. All my affairs have already been settled.” A slow hiss. “My people do not put much ceremony in departures or arrivals. We leave, we are gone for a while, we come back. That is the way of things.”

  “But…” Ramirez hesitated, as if not quite knowing how to express himself. “We’ve only met you. No others of your kind. Don’t they wish to meet us as well?”

  “No.” This came as a flat statement, almost a dismissal. “If and when the time comes that further contact with our kind is acceptable, then you will meet other hjadd. Until then, I am the Prime Emissary of both my kind and the Talus.”

  Emily nodded. It wasn’t hard to read between the lines. Until Jas established favorable relations with this newly discovered species, the hjadd, as well as the rest of the Talus, w
ould minimize their contact as much as possible. But just as Mahamatasja Jas Sa-Fhadda was putting himherself at considerable risk, so were they. If something were to happen to himher…

  “Are you ready?” Jas asked, hisher helmet revolving toward the cockpit. “My people are waiting to open the starbridge.”

  “Of course. By all means.” Trading a wary glance with Harker, Emily turned toward the flight deck.

  The cockpit looked much the same as she’d left it, yet upon closer inspection she saw that it had undergone its own modifications. One of the passenger seats had been removed—remembering that this was where Cruz had sat, she felt a surge of remorse—and replaced with a sleek couch contoured to match Jas’s broad body and high neck. The left-side console in front of the pilot’s seat had been altered as well; the engine control panels and navigation comps were gone, with black, reflective slates in their place. Otherwise, everything else appeared to be untouched.

  “Your ship will operate much the same way as it did before,” Jas said, standing behind her in the aisle while she and the others fastened their harnesses. “The only difference is that you will not need to activate the engines or program your computers. All these requirements have already been preset within the ship’s internal control and guidance system.”

  “So what do I do?” Emily found her headset dangling from the control yoke. Despite the fact that it was a half century old, the foam pads of the earpieces looked as if they’d been replaced only yesterday. Indeed, except for the alterations, Maria’s cockpit had been perfectly preserved, without even a mote of dust to be seen. “Just…take off and fly? Simple as that?”

  “Simple as that.” Jas moved to hisher seat, carefully settled into it. “If you have forgotten how to operate your vehicle, of course, or otherwise lack the confidence…”

  “Careful.” Harker twisted around in his seat to favor the hjadd with a cold stare. “You’re talking to the best pilot the European Space Agency has ever seen.”

  “Pardon me.” A slow, stuttering hiss from their passenger. “I did not mean to insult.”

  Keeping a straight face, Ted gave Emily a sly wink. “That’s all right,” she said. “Just don’t let it happen again.” Then she reached forward to the instrument panel and switched it on.

  Its lights and screens lit at once, with no trace of a flicker. As an afterthought, she accessed the backup flight recorder; a quick glance at the menu showed her that its memory was intact, with no trace of erasure or core erosion. Apparently the hjadd, after probing the system, had decided to leave it alone; the last date registered on the automatic logbook was January 9, 2291, the day the Galileo was destroyed and her survivors had gone into emergency biostasis aboard the shuttle.

  Emily shared a glance with Ted. Noticing the same thing, he quietly nodded. Whatever else lay before them, at least they had a way to prove their story. She took a deep breath, then pulled on her headset and proceeded with the prelaunch checklist.

  She soon discovered that, although the engine ignition sequence was missing, there was no indication that the new propulsion system was active. Yet when she raised the gangway and pressurized the cabin, she glanced through the windows and saw that the hangar ceiling had opened like an enormous clamshell. Above them was a jet-black sky sprinkled with countless stars, the brightest ones forming constellations no human eye had ever seen before.

  “We are ready to depart.” Jas was nestled within hisher couch, amorphous flanges holding hisher body secure. “You may launch whenever you are ready.”

  “Thanks.” Emily let out her breath. Then, for no other reason than a stubborn desire to retain tradition, she touched her mike wand. “This is EAS Maria Celeste,” she said to whoever might be listening. “Requesting permission to lift off.”

  She waited a moment. No response. She looked over at Ted, and he shrugged. “All right, then,” she murmured, then wrapped her hands around the yoke and pulled back.

  With only the faintest of hums, and almost no sense of motion, the shuttle rose from the hangar floor. It almost seemed as if she were flying a simulator, only without the fabricated rocking that a simulator would make to give verisimilitude to the experience. The ascent was smooth, eerie in its almost total silence; the curved walls of the hangar fell away below them, and suddenly she found herself rising into space.

  “Ohhh…” Harker’s voice was little more than a whisper. “Will you look at that?”

  All around them, for nearly as far as they could see, lay the immense structure that they’d glimpsed from Galileo’s reconstructed library. Like a vast and measureless molecule of some alien crystal, Talus qua’spah stretched out to all sides of them, scintillating in the sunlight reflected from the aquamarine world around which it orbited. Spars and spheres, buttresses and towers, rings and cylinders, all connected to one another by an infinitely complex network of struts and beams.

  “Home,” Jas said, gazing out the window beside himher. For a moment, hisher voice sounded forlorn. Glancing over her shoulder at her new passenger, it seemed to Emily as if the hjadd was bidding farewell to a familiar place.

  “Where to now?” she asked.

  “You may release the controls.” Jas looked back at her. “Your craft will take you there on its own.”

  Emily looked at Harker. He silently nodded, and she removed her hands from the yoke. On its own, the shuttle moved away from the giant station, its prow lifting upward and out, until she saw that it was aligned with a tiny silver ring that hovered a short distance away.

  Another starbridge, identical to the one Galileo had found in orbit above Spindrift. As the Maria Celeste hurtled toward it, Emily instinctively grasped the armrests of her seat. “What do I do now?”

  “You do nothing.” The hjadd’s voice was calm. “You’ll soon be where you should be.”

  She was about to say something when the ring’s interior lit with a cold blue fire. Emily had just enough time to grab Ted’s hand, then…

  TWENTY

  JANUARY 18, 2344—47 URSAE MAJORIS

  …They were through the starbridge.

  The second time wasn’t nearly as grueling as the first. Although Harker was careful to close his eyes just before the Maria Celeste entered hyperspace, nonetheless he caught the brilliant flash of transition. Yet there was none of the violence he had experienced aboard the Galileo when it passed through KX-1; a brief moment of vertigo, as if the shuttle were executing a barrel roll, then everything was calm.

  Opening his eyes, he took a deep breath. Through the cockpit windows, nothing but stars. Talus qua’spah had disappeared, but there was no clear indication of where they’d emerged. Emily was still holding tight to his hand, but already she was beginning to stir. Looking over at him, she gave him a wary smile.

  “That’s it?” she murmured. “That’s all?”

  “Guess so.” He gently released her hand. “Maybe we’re getting used to this.”

  “Forgive me for the sin of pride,” Jas said, hisher voice coming to them from behind Emily, “but our hyperspace technology is more sophisticated than your own.” Another stuttering hiss that Harker had learned to recognize as the hjadd equivalent of a chuckle. “We have been doing this for quite some time now.”

  Harker craned his neck to look back at Jas. The hjadd sat calmly in hisher seat; as before, Harker saw only a distorted reflection of himself in hisher helmet visor. For some reason, he found that irritating. “If you’re so confident,” he asked, “then why…?”

  “Hold on,” Emily said. “Picking up something on the com.”

  Clasping her right hand against her headset, she reached up to the communications panel to adjust the frequency. “Please repeat,” she said. “Not clear.”

  Harker reached up to his own headset, only to find that it had fallen down around his neck. He pulled it back in place in time to hear a male voice, fuzzed slightly by static: “…to unidentified spacecraft, do you copy? Please identify yourself. Repeat, this is Starbridge Coyote to unidentifie
d spacecraft. Please respond and identify yourself.”

  “We copy, Starbridge Coyote.” Emily’s eyes widened. “This is…”

  “Let me handle this.” Emily gave him an irritated glance, then apparently remembered that, even though she was the pilot, Harker was still the senior officer aboard. She nodded, and Harker touched his headset wand. “Starbridge Coyote, this is European Alliance shuttle Maria Celeste. Do you copy?”

  As he spoke, he turned to gaze through the window to his right. Just off the shuttle’s starboard wing, he spotted a silver ring: the starbridge through which they had just emerged. About ten kilometers away, he caught a glimpse of a spindle-shaped object that faintly resembled the Galileo, although without the torus of its diametric drive. The gatehouse, no doubt.

  “They’re never going to believe this,” Ramirez murmured behind him.

  “Quiet.” Yet Harker exchanged another glance with Emily. What if he was right? Nothing they could do about it, though, except try to be persuasive. “Repeat,” Harker said, “this is EAS Maria Celeste, responding to…”

  “We copy, unidentified craft.” A different voice now, older and more authoritative. “We have no knowledge of any EAS starships called Maria Celeste. Supply proper registry number at once.”

  “Told you so,” Ramirez said.

  “Oh, for the love of…” Impatient, Emily reactivated her mike. “Starbridge Coyote, this is EAS Maria Celeste, registry Alpha Romeo One-One-Nine-Two-Beta, an Ares-class shuttle belonging to EASS Galileo, registry Alpha Romeo One-One-Nine-Two-Alpha. Lieutenant Collins, Emily Anne, responding as pilot, with Commander Harker, Theodore Edward, responding as commanding officer. Check your database, or go read a history…”

  “Cut it out.” Harker reached over to jab the lobe of Emily’s headset, rendering it inactive. “For all they know, this could be some sort of prank. We can’t…”