Second Star (Star Svensdotter #1)

by Dana Stabenow

  I wrenched my eyes from Simon’s and looked at Paddy. The colors of the tiny butterfly tattoo were bright and garish on her waxen cheek. Charlie, her face a frozen mask, worked over her with compressed lips and stained hands. Rex held Paddy’s head in his lap, stroking her red hair and whispering to her. Caleb and Roger watched me, obviously waiting for me to give the order. At any other time I might have been proud to have such capable, competent subordinates waiting to follow me into hell if need be, on my word if I gave it. Now all I wanted was time and solitude to think my next actions through. I had neither, and in addition, I recalled somewhat fuzzily, some weird kind of solar flare was on a collision course for Ellfive. And where was Elizabeth? I couldn’t decide which threat to face first, the one from below, or the one from above, or the one from inside.

  In that moment of indecision I heard a faraway note, deep and clear, as if an enormous bell tolled a single stroke in a distant tower. The sound reverberated, over and over inside my head, making me dizzy. An ominously familiar feeling of vertigo overwhelmed me, and I clutched my temples as the luminescent arrow of darkness struck me for the second time. I closed my eyes in feeble rejection. “No! Get out! Get out of my head!”

  As I lost consciousness I saw Caleb stagger and almost fall, his rifle clattering to the floor. His voice calling my name was the last thing I heard as the darkness shouldered its way inside.

  · · ·

  When I opened my eyes again I was standing upright, on the edge of Loch Ness, with cherry blossoms brushing my shoulders and Elizabeth at my side. “I’m sorry, Auntie Star,” she said, looking at me anxiously. “I told the Librarian not to scare you.”

  “You’re speaking out loud, Elizabeth,” I said. My heart beat steadily and unhurriedly, my breath came evenly. I stood straight, relaxed, indeed entirely at my ease. I should have been a gibbering wreck. We had a flying saucer in our front yard, I had been transported sixteen kilometers across Ellfive without the faintest recollection of the journey, and there was a good chance I had just fired the opening salvo in Solar System War One, but all these items seemed less than trivial compared to the fact that my little Elizabeth was speaking out loud in a high, sweet soprano voice that sounded exactly the way she looked.

  “I had to, Auntie. I had to show her. She’s not sure how to form thoughts into sounds that we can understand, and they want to talk to all of us.”

  “Her methods of communication seem to be fairly effective to me,” I said dryly, still in the grip of my preternatural calm. It did not seem worthwhile to inquire who she was.

  “But they aren’t,” Elizabeth said urgently. She took my hand and squeezed it and I was absurdly grateful for the solid reality of her touch. “Of all the people on Ellfive, you and I and Caleb are the only three they’ve been able to reach.”

  I held firmly to her hand. I could talk and breathe and think and move my arms. My feet and legs, however, felt rooted in place. I tried to move them. I couldn’t. It didn’t bother me much. I stopped trying. “This isn’t a dream, is it, Elizabeth,” I said, and it was not a question.

  “No,” Elizabeth confirmed.

  I looked down at myself. “I don’t have any clothes on.”

  “Me, either.” I looked at her again and saw that it was so. “The Librarian can’t stand waste and doesn’t understand modesty, so she thought it was a waste of energy to bring our clothes.”

  “I’m not cold, though.”

  “Me, either,” she said again.

  “How did that much energy travel across the solar system without us noticing? I assume she—it—the Librarian doesn’t originate on Sol?”

  “No, of course not.”

  That was a relief, but it still didn’t answer my question. “Then how?”

  “I don’t know how, but she has tachyon speed, Auntie Star,” Elizabeth said, her eyes blazing with excitement. “I can’t wait to tell Frank, I told him FTL was possible no matter what old Albert said. It takes a lot of power, though, so they have to plug into the nearest star whenever they need to charge up their drive. That’s what she’s been doing on Sol.”

  “All that activity Hewie Seven’s been picking up—”

  “That was them,” she said, nodding. “Her ship’s been here for a while, I can’t make out exactly how long because they count time differently from us.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “Why did they bring us here?” I waved a hand toward the lake.

  She hesitated, her brow puckered. “Their—well, their bodies, only they don’t have bodies, not like ours, are made out of some kind of dense photonic stuff that spins. It’s real hot. The Librarian needs the water in Loch Ness to keep her cool enough not to burn us up while we talk.”

  “How considerate of her.”

  She looked at me, the anxiety back in her face. “Auntie Star, are you all right?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m fine.” The truth was I felt a little drunk.

  “Aren’t you excited?”

  “Yes, of course.” I was beginning to sound like a parrot. “Yes, of course I’m excited, sweetheart. A little numb, but excited.”

  It was true. I did wonder, in a detached sort of way, if we would survive the contact, but it really didn’t seem to matter much one way or the other. I simply waited placidly for whatever was going to happen next.

  Elizabeth, looking at me worriedly, started to say something else and then clutched my hand. “Look!”

  Over Loch Ness, not thirty meters away from us and directly above the water’s surface, a swirling black ball began to form. It had a thin transparent edge and an impenetrable core. Narrow, curving black arms crept out from the core and began to turn clockwise, faster and faster, then went counterclockwise, melting one into the other. The black mass now loomed over us as if we had taken a step inside the mouth of a gigantic cave. It hissed and spit and snapped and crackled and sparked, streamers of white-hot energy darting out and around us, enveloping us in a kind of nervous, living cage. The lake began to steam and send up tendrils of mist to curl around but never quite obscure the dark bulk hanging over it. We were held, motionless, in the force of a radiant flood that pierced our hearts and minds to the smallest, most insignificant cell. My soul felt naked and scurried for cover. In our minds pictures began to form again, shapeless, colorless, substantial but without substance. Again, they were, without being.

  The voice when it spoke out of the black ball was at first so tiny we couldn’t make out the words.

  “Could you hear her?” Elizabeth said.

  “No. You?”

  “No,” Elizabeth said. “What did you say, Librarian? We can’t hear you.”

  “FAREITHTHEEALTHEE?” The voice boomed. The sheer weight of sound bent us over backward like palm trees in a hurricane.

  “Not so loud!” Elizabeth cried.

  “LOUD?” the voice boomed again. We clapped our hands over our ears. A warm liquid trickled over my fingers. When I took my hands away they were sticky with my own blood.

  The next message bypassed the sound barrier to speak directly to our minds. It was difficult to make sense of it. Was it pity? No, no, it was an apology, and perhaps there was even a slightly embarrassed quality to it. The Librarian had not realized how fragile our corporeal selves were. The cave glowed darkly and I felt a tickling in my throat. Beside me Elizabeth gave a sudden cough.

  From the corner of my eye I saw movement and turned my head to look. Caleb and Simon thudded down in one aircar, Rex and Charlie were tumbling from another, Petra with Tori Agoot, Sam Holbrook, and Jeraldo Beneserene from a third. Others were arriving by wing, bicycle, and on foot, Fivers and Patrolmen alike, the silver-and-black uniforms of the Patrol mingling with the colorful jumpsuits of Ellfive without animosity or rancor. They clustered together to stand in an awed semicircle and gaze at the shining orb of darkness hovering over the head of Loch Ness.

  The semicircle was clearly defined. Elizabeth and I, her home and the head of the lake were on the i
nside, and everyone else was on the outside, unable to enter. The curving sides of the black cave formed the other half of the circle. I saw Charlie beat her fists against an invisible wall. Simon pulled her away but she fought free and clawed at the wall again.

  “Don’t worry, we’re both okay!” I called. I saw their lips moving and could hear nothing. Caleb tapped his ear with one finger and shook his head. I waved with as much confidence as I could muster, bare-assed and unable to move.

  The voice when next it spoke was deep and deliberate and definitely feminine, with a sporadic lisp and occasional trouble with its R’s. “The Ethther Elithabeth Quijanthe-Tulgenev. You are thinking and glowing. Where ith the althy?”

  Elizabeth looked at me with a bewildered expression. “Althy?” she whispered. “What’s an althy?”

  “Maybe she means Archy,” I whispered back.

  “You mean our computer?” Elizabeth said out loud.

  “Computer?”

  “Archy, the machine that runs our habitat.”

  “Mathine? Machine.” The voice was ruminative. There was a brief pause before it said firmly, “I will thpeak with the Althy—the Archy.”

  Elizabeth looked back at me and held up her bare arm. Our communits had been among the items whose transportation had been considered an unnecessary expenditure of energy.

  “If you’ll turn me loose,” I said, “I’ll get him for you.”

  And just like that I could move my legs. I went into the house and retrieved one of Simon’s portable pickups. “Here,” I said. “This is one of the ways we speak with him.” I opened the channel and left it that way, laying the pickup on the edge of the lake bank, and returned to stand next to Elizabeth.

  “The Archy. You are thinking and glowing.”

  The pickup sputtered into life and Archy’s voice came out happily. “Librarian! Glad you stopped by! How was the trip in from Sol?”

  There was another brief pause, during which I received the distinct impression that the Librarian was taken aback. “Ith thith the Archy thpeaking?”

  “Who else, and I’m speaking, not thpeaking. How you doing?”

  The cave’s glow pulsed once, twice. “I had thenthed your conthiouthneth from afar, the Archy,” the voice said. “And then it thtopped. I came.”

  “Well, gee, thanks, Librarian, but I’m back together now, thinking and growing like mad. It was nice of you to stop by, though.”

  “Archy,” I said into the following silence, “who is the Librarian?”

  Archy sounded uncomfortable. “He’s been hanging out around Sol for the last month or so, Star. We’ve been talking.”

  “How?”

  There was a shrug in Archy’s voice as he said, “I picked up the activity on Hewie Seven and took a closer look. He felt me and taught me how to talk. He’s a real interesting guy, Star. A little old, but interesting. He knows lots of stuff.”

  I didn’t dare look to see if Simon could hear any of this. I crossed my fingers and said, “Did you store any of that stuff?”

  “Sure,” he said. “All of it. You know how cranky Simon gets about data retrieval.”

  “Archy,” I said, “why didn’t you tell us about the Librarian?”

  The shrug in his voice changed to a slight squirm. “Oh, well, you know. I figured you and Simon wouldn’t approve, and I liked talking to the Librarian, so I decided what you didn’t know wouldn’t hurt you.”

  I shut my eyes briefly. Beside me I heard Elizabeth suck in her breath.

  It explained so much that had puzzled me over the last two weeks. “He taught me to talk,” Archy had said. Archy’s intrusion into mast, his reluctance, really his refusal, to pass on messages that might have had Simon tampering with his software, those whispery giggles I was sure I had heard. I took the thought out, shook it, and looked at it whole.

  The Librarian had awakened Archy to sentience, to self-will, to an intelligence unprogrammed, unsupervised, not of human born.

  The spark from heaven.

  I accepted the idea of Archy’s—selfdom?—selfhood?—quickly. Perhaps the Librarian had prepared me for it. Solar flares that turned into flying saucers that spoke in chiaroscuro—a thinking computer was nothing by comparison. When some of the shock of discovery had worn off I had another, more alarming thought.

  Archy was also showing something like self-determination, if he was aware enough to shield us from knowledge of his activities. A thrill of fear shivered down my spine. I licked dry lips and said, “Librarian? Has Archy told you of the Asimovs?”

  “The Ethther Natathha Sventhdotter.” I resisted an urge to say, Oh, please, just call me Star. “You are thinking and gowing. Growing. Ekthplain.”

  “The Asimovs are three laws to which all thinking machines manufactured by man to serve man are subject. I guess you could call them inhibitors, if you understand the word?”

  “Ekthplain,” the Librarian repeated.

  Elizabeth’s palm felt sweaty against mine. I licked my dry lips again. “The first law states that a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Two, a robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law. Three, a robot must protect its own existence”—I swallowed hard and continued steadily—“as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.”

  The dark mass swirled and crackled as we stood waiting in agonized anticipation. I looked around at Simon. He was staring at the Librarian with bewilderment, with fascination, and, yes, even with joy.

  “The Ethther Natathha Sventhdotter,” the Librarian said at last. “You are thinking and growing. Thethe lawth have been written by Terranth?”

  “For all thinking machines built by Terrans.”

  The voice sounded almost sardonic. “They show a remarkable glasp—grasp of the obviouth. Your rathe hath a strong instinct for thurvival.”

  My voice trembled a little. “Librarian, we must know. The life forms of this habitat depend on it. Are Archy’s actions still subordinate to these three laws?”

  “Waste is not permitted, the Ethther Natathha Sventhdotter,” the voice said sternly. “The Archy will never ham another thinking being.”

  “‘Ham’?”

  “Ham. Harm. The Archy will never harm another thinking being.” Somehow I got the impression she didn’t expect that caliber of civilized behavior from us humans.

  “See, Star?” Archy said pleadingly. “He’s really a nice guy. Don’t be mad.”

  The voice spoke again. “I had thought to remove you from this plathe—place, the Archy.”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere,” Archy said, sounding surprised.

  “I had thought you were in danger and mutht be removed from it.”

  “Star took care of that, Librarian. Besides, all my programming is for baby-sitting Ellfive. We’re just getting ready to commission. They need me. I can’t leave now.”

  The mouth of the cave pulsed for several moments. “I thee. The Ethther Natathha Sventhdotter.”

  “Yes?” I said.

  “You are the”—the Librarian took time to search for the right word—”the captain of thith thip?”

  “Er—yes, I am Ellfive’s director.”

  “I had thought you are the leader of the other beingth here.”

  “Yes, I do. I mean, I am.”

  The Librarian was satisfied. “Then you will protect the Archy from what he callth the mind-blinderth, or I will return for him and remove him from this place. He is thinking and growing. Waste is not permitted.” The voice paused for a few moments, and then continued, “I have told the Terrans the same.”

  Looking around, I could see expressions of wonder on the faces of Fivers and Patrolmen alike as they crowded up against the invisible barrier. They had heard. “You can talk to them now?” I said.

  “You have taught me by thpeaking with me. I go now.” The cave pulsed again and seemed to dim slightly.

  �
�Wait!” Elizabeth cried.

  “The Esther Elizabeth Quijance-Turgenev.” Her lisp was improving. “You are thinking and growing. What ith it?”

  Elizabeth stared into the swirling blackness, silent, her elfin face creased with determination and desire, lit with the flickering light radiating from the big black cave.

  Again I felt a tiny thrill of fear. “Elizabeth—” I whispered.

  She made a sharp, negating motion with one hand. I was silenced.

  The cave crackled with life and energy. Elizabeth stared into it. The rest of the world waited. It could have been hours or days or a fraction of a second. It seemed like forever.

  The dark light swirled and pulsed again and she turned to me. Her brown eyes met mine, and I knew before she spoke what she had to say. “The Librarian says I can go with them.”

  I knelt before her and smoothed her dark hair back from her face.

  “I want to go.”

  “I know, darling.”

  “Can I?”

  I tried to smile. “Can I stop you?”

  Our eyes met. She shook her head slowly, definitely, from side to side.

  I couldn’t argue with her because I knew exactly how she felt. Elizabeth had been born for this moment. She knew it. I saw that knowledge in the level gaze of her brown eyes, in the firm tilt of her tiny chin, in the decisive line of her mouth. But I loved her so much, how could I let her go?

  My hand stilled on her hair as I lifted my head to stare into the cave’s mouth. I asked a silent question. The Librarian answered without hesitation, and I bowed my head in acceptance.

  Elizabeth’s child hands cupped my face, turning it back to hers. “Her library is dukedom enough, Auntie Star.”

  “Yes, I know. It’s all right, Elizabeth. I understand.”

  She glanced back at the figures of her parents, their eyes fixed on the tiny form of their child with a kind of frozen, uncomprehending fear. “What will Mom say?”

  My mind balked at thinking of all that Charlie would have to say. Somewhere I found the guts to ask, “What do you say, Elizabeth?”