Alien Artifacts

by Seanan McGuire

  “I read your report, Dr. Jacoby. I read it through, then read it through again.”

  “And?”

  “And I’ve decided to leave the asteroid alone.”

  Luanne felt very slightly faint but said, with as level a voice as she could manage, “I’m very glad to hear it.”

  Grier turned around. “I’m sure you are. But it’s not for the reasons you offer—it’s because I don’t think this object posts any particular threat, whether or not I blast it out of existence. Your report…and your story…is interesting, but I simply don’t believe a word of it.”

  “And yet you still don’t intend to destroy the station,” she said.

  “My grandfather was a bit of an eccentric, Doctor,” Grier said. “He collected antique toys. The one of which he was most proud was a pinball machine. Do you know what that is?”

  “I have to confess I don’t,” she answered, wondering where this was going.

  “A pinball machine is a device with a sort of inclined box. A spring-loaded chute sends a metal ball up a ramp and into the top of the incline, and it bounces off various surfaces, going from place to place. The player tries to keep it in play by flipping it back up. The ball is knocked around, colliding with obstacles as it travels. Great fun, I might note. Grampa let us play with it when we’d been particularly well-behaved.

  “The asteroid belt, Dr. Jacoby, is like a pinball machine, except more complex, and while a pinball is fairly indestructible and the obstacles in the machine are resilient, everything out here—” he waved one arm toward the view behind him “—is bumpy and sharp-edged. Things are always coming in contact with each other, shearing off bits and cracking into pieces. That’s been going on since the protoplanet in this orbit came apart eons ago.

  “Thinking about that led me to wonder: if this station has been out here for a long time, how has it survived? How has it kept from colliding, malfunctioning, moving off its intended orbit? And if it has some capability to resist impacts or alter its course, why is it that Aldrin—or any ship from a puny culture like ours—poses any threat whatsoever? Why doesn’t it just move out of the way or laugh at our weaponry?

  “And I concluded that you’ve been convinced that they are threatened by us, but that they can still change the content of the cosmic background. It doesn’t add up. Which means, Dr. Jacoby, that despite standing orders to contain or eliminate possible alien threats, I have decided that this simply isn’t worth my time.”

  Luanne didn’t know how to respond—either to Grier’s logic or to his sneering tone—so she simply stood, silent, waiting for him to continue.

  “I trust that you will be ready to debark at Mars Orbital in a few days. I plan for us to get underway immediately.”

  * * *

  1059 days after the world did not come to an end, Luanne Jacoby was sitting at her console at the Solar Observatory, monitoring the CBE. Things had been significantly upgraded since the encounter—which had never been made public, by agreement with the defense establishment—and whether the improved gear was a result of the right word in the right place by Captain Grier or someone further up the line, she never knew. Dr. Gregory was out at Ganymede now; Luanne had remained at the “tanning salon,” and was now its Director.

  There had been talk of a stalled career. Certainly Jeremy, who knew just about as much about the event as she did, had wondered whether she should move on. There were better positions elsewhere in the System. He’d found one himself at the Tycho Deep Space Telescope Array, the recent replacement for the Copernicus (which had replaced the Webb, which had replaced Kepler...) and every time they spoke he told her how valuable she’d be there instead of at Solar.

  He’d called early during her duty shift to see if she’d noticed anything. They’d refined the data on earlier instances to the point that they had it timed to within a minute. Like her, he was waiting for the CBE blips. She’d told him—at four minute delay each way, damn that pesky speed of light—that he was two hours early and should get back to work.

  So here she was, the interference pattern of what she was told was the song of all of the stars in the universe spread out before her, the chrono running down toward the moment at which the station in the asteroid belt would echo what the Sun could no longer hear.

  Thirty seconds—then fifteen—then the last countdown, like they used to do for space insertions, to zero.

  And nothing. Radio silence.

  She checked the equipment, scrolled the display backward to see if she’d missed it—no, there was no alteration in the pattern.

  She tried not to panic, but her scientist’s mind formulated a simple sentence: everyone inside the orbit of Mars has about fifty-three minutes to live.

  “Grier,” she said to no one in particular. “Grier, you stupid bastard. You destroyed the station anyway. I told you what it was, and you destroyed it anyway.” But the last telemetry—captured a few weeks ago—showed it there, a tiny speck against the background of a nearby, larger rock.

  Jeremy must know this too: sometime in the next four or five minutes there would probably be an incoming signal asking what the hell, or just to see whether she knew, too, and what could possibly be done.

  Radio silence, she thought to herself.

  She leaned back in her chair, looking up at the ceiling, and closed her eyes.

  “Lu.”

  She opened her eyes to see the sketched room, the place she hadn’t seen for three and a quarter years, the place that Grier told her was in her imagination.

  Jeremy/Assad was sitting alone opposite her, smiling faintly.

  “You didn’t transmit,” she said. “Why didn’t you transmit?”

  “We didn’t need to,” he answered. “You found us, Lu. Your civilization has learned what the station does, what it’s for. Now you will do it yourselves.”

  “Alter the cosmic background radiation? How the hell do you expect me to do that—by force of will?”

  “Essentially,” Jeremy/Assad said, “yes. There is no one in your Solar System who is closer to the Sun than you are—not just physically, but emotionally. You care about your primary. Now you are to be given the opportunity, and the responsibility, to care for it as well. And with that achievement, we can at last go home.”

  Lu thought about it for a moment, then said, “In a little under an hour, the sun is going to blow all of the inner system to permanent hell, and you decide now to have me learn on the job? You could have picked any time in the last three years plus to visit and teach me what I need to know, and you wait until now?”

  “Though this matter has never been far from your mind, Lu, it is only now that it is foremost. That activated our programming and caused us to contact you. And as for learning how to do what is necessary—there is nothing to learn. All you must do is listen.”

  “Listen—to the cosmic background.”

  “Yes.”

  “What if I don’t hear it? What if I fail—what if I can’t—”

  “You will, and you can, and you will not fail.” Jeremy/Assad smiled again. “Don’t be afraid, Lu. Just listen.”

  There was a tightness in her chest that made it feel as if it was going to burst. She was shivering—but she was not paralyzed.

  She took a deep breath—and listened.

  * * *

  11,000 days after the world didn’t come to an end, there was a signal at Dr. Luanne Jacoby-Arnett’s door. She waved at the air, the door irised, and a young woman stepped into the office.

  “You sent for me?”

  Astrid Gonzalez was the very image of her father; Luanne had noticed that as soon as she’d come on board. Jeremy’s recommendation had brought her here, a brilliant twenty-seven-year-old astrophysicist who had done some very interesting work on the boundaries of the Sun’s chromosphere. When she’d come aboard she seemed skeptical—Dr. Jacoby-Arnett wasn’t the easiest person to work for, and at least in public, most of the staff was terrified of her.

  But Astrid was bright,
and interested in the Sun, and would do nicely.

  “Yes,” Luanne said. “Yes, I did. Please sit.” She gestured to a floating chair; Astrid took it, a little tentatively—not many people were accorded the privilege of sitting when they were called to the boss’s office.

  “If you’re asking about the status report—”

  “No, Dr. Gonzalez. Nothing like that.” She smiled; everyone knew that didn’t happen very often. Boris Arnett, her husband, had been killed in some sort of accident in the transMartian asteroid belt six years ago, and no one at the Observatory was accounted as Dr. Jacoby-Arnett’s friend.

  Astrid knew that her father was in that category, though. She waited for the older woman to speak.

  “There’s an experience that your father and I had thirty-odd years ago,” Luanne began. She could see Astrid’s eyebrows go up. “Nothing like that,” she said. “It has to do with this.” She waved at the comp and a sound flooded the background, like a bad experimental band playing instruments through the ductwork.

  “That sounds like the audio of the cosmic background radiation,” Astrid said.

  Smart girl, Luanne thought. “Now listen carefully.” She pointed at the graphical representation on a holo she put up in the air between them. When the sound replay reached the place she pointed to, there was a slight alteration.

  “What—”

  “When we first heard it, your father and I asked what it was. I have an answer—and in order to explain, I will need you to listen...”

  THE NIGHTSIDE

  Julie Novakova

  In some other reality, seeming so unreal and faraway now, Christmas time was approaching. It was snowing here.

  Linus checked the updated weather feed. The snowfall had thickened recently due to the increased activity on the dayside. Here, hundreds of kilometers safely behind the terminator, the tiny flakes of condensed iron and titanium were drifting slowly to the ground. Barely a micron across, the metallic snow was invisible to human eyes. However, after millions of years of continuous fall, a fortune in purified ore had accumulated in these regions.

  “All good here,” reported Linus and closed the hatch of the tiny control room. “Moving to the last one.”

  The nuclear-powered furnaces stood tall and wide in the perpetual night, spawning one block of iron or titanium after another. A few also processed other metals: aluminum, chromium, nickel. Tireless trains transported the raw ores here from the mining sites.

  Linus couldn’t wait for his stroll outside to be over. Visual inspections of the machinery were largely outdated but they were still a mandatory part of the process for what if and human resourcefulness reasons.

  “Going back,” he announced and set off for the maintenance rail.

  “Trying to break the inspection speed record again?” answered a playful voice.

  Linus frowned. Miranda always teased him when it was his turn to go outside. She seemed to enjoy the landscape; he did not.

  He would never admit it but it struck some chords buried deep in the human mind—the fear of dark and cold—and the chords in his brain seemed to be particularly well-developed. Not a good trait for someone stationed to remain at this place for a whole year. But it could have been worse, he reminded himself. Actually much, much worse. He should be grateful for this.

  But he felt most grateful when the train released him next to the airlock. He couldn’t wait to get out of the suit and spend as long as the scheduled water supply allowed in the shower.

  When the cabin pressurized, Miranda appeared and helped him out of the suit. “Everything okay?”

  “Yes. Everything in perfect working order.” We’re useless here, he added for himself.

  “Great. Though from you, it sounds like a funeral speech,” Miranda remarked.

  Linus left that without reply. He felt streams of sweat running down his whole body. The thought of a shower sustained him.

  It was getting worse every time. He would have thought he’d get used to it—but the more time he spent on the planet’s surface, the more shaken each visit left him.

  Five more months, he reminded himself. Then it’s over.

  He staggered out of the cabin and headed straight into the tiny bathroom.

  “You’re welcome,” Miranda called after him, still putting the suit’s components back in place.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled though she couldn’t possibly hear that.

  Just five more months. You can hold it.

  He turned on the water and closed his eyes.

  * * *

  Miranda was sitting at the small table in the main room, chewing a dried protein stick. “Just in time for dinner,” she grinned at him. “I left you the chicken-flavored one.”

  “Good,” he said mechanically and sagged to a chair.

  “We’ve got news from outside. The suckers were driven back behind the outer belt.” Miranda produced a proud smile. “It’ll be months at least until they’re back in the gravity well—if they dare try it!”

  Linus looked up full of hope. “So the inner belt is secure for mining?”

  “Nope. The bloody clinkers left it full of their tech. The drones and traps are stupid but not stupid enough to allow us to mine the belt safely.”

  So we’re not getting out of here soon. Linus suppressed a sigh. Without metal supply from the asteroid belt, this world was the best source even though its orbit extremely close to the sun made it highly inconvenient to extract metals here. It took enormous amounts of fuel to get out of this gravity well and good shielding to protect the ship.

  Without knowing otherwise, he might imagine they were on a large moon or a small terrestrial planet somewhere normal. All they ever saw here above the cracked land was an ordinary night sky. Only when they occasionally needed to go near the terminator did the strangeness of this world become apparent.

  Miranda interpreted his grim silence as a sign of doubt. “Hey, if they were still around, don’t you think we’d see them? Even if they just flew by inertia, we’ve got enough probes around to notice a ship’s thermal signature. They’re gone.”

  Linus nodded apathetically. “What about other solar systems?”

  “No news.”

  There hadn’t been any for nearly three months now. It didn’t necessarily mean trouble. It just meant that either no ship or probe of theirs made the Ozaki crossing into this system, or that the information wasn’t intended for them.

  Linus knew there were systems where new ships arrived only every four or five years. This system became one of the battlegrounds due to its location and the traffic was heavier, at least four scheduled Ozaki crossings there and away in a year. One of the ships was supposed to bring their replacements and take them back to civilization in five more months. He hoped it would arrive on time. The idea of being stuck here longer, for years in the worst case, made Linus shiver.

  Without a word, he got up and took his food to his bunk.

  * * *

  Before we arrived, we learned that no crew really stuck to the planet’s official catalog name. You couldn’t miss the pattern in the nicknames: Hell, Hades, Gehenna, Furnace, Inferno. I personally liked The Oven. Sticking to this tradition of non-repeating names, we gave it our own: Tartarus.

  Linus’ hand stopped above the touchscreen. As if he could ever send home any of the letters he composed. All communication was restricted: assignment reports only. During the long hours of nothing, he’d mastered the art of writing letters, started playing with the composition and word choice, style, tone.

  Miranda never understood this. Why do you write home if you can’t send it? she kept asking. And why the hell are you writing at all? I’d just do a recording.

  She appeared by his bunk door now. “Hey, Lin…You okay?”

  “Of course I am. Just tired.” Linus put down his notepad. He wasn’t actually upset about how she’d teased him before—and he was certain she wasn’t feeling sorry. That wasn’t her style.

  She smirked. “Too tired?�
�

  “Not too much,” he admitted. A different answer had crossed his mind, a desire to stay alone, but he ignored it. I should be grateful for her. I’d go crazy if I’d been here on my own or with someone less like her.

  Miranda smiled and climbed inside the tiny space with him. Linus quickly put his notepad away.

  Afterwards, she fell asleep in his bunk, making the confined space even more claustrophobic. But he couldn’t bring himself to wake her up. Her warmth and regular breathing calmed him. He could imagine he was safely home and Miranda was his girlfriend, not a pragmatic crewmate who preferred him to a machine. He’d be sleeping in a real bed, after a day spent doing a real job, walking under a real sky—

  Stop it! You’re just making it worse. Get some sleep.

  He shifted next to Miranda, trying not to think. Thinking was a sleep-killer. However, it was not easy to stop. His thoughts inevitably moved to the war.

  They’d talked about it just two nights before. Miranda was resolute and straightforward as ever. Sometimes he wondered if there was anything that could leave her uncertain.

  “What do you think is going on up there, right now?” he’d whispered in a careless moment. Miranda had sneered in the dim light of the bunk. “What do you think? They’re probably shooting each other out of the skies.”

  “Yeah, but I mean…How does this end? And when?”

  “We win, of course. We’re better than the clinkers. And we’ve got to defeat them.” Miranda had looked almost bored. Why’s he asking so stupid questions, he could imagine her thinking. He’d felt impossibly alone despite her presence.

  How can she be so sure? Linus had thought. Am I a traitor because I have doubts?

  Just because he’d occasionally wondered whether the so-called clinkers were as dangerous and distorted as presented, was he becoming dangerous, too? Because he’d pondered whether their ideology of abandoning planet colonization was so bad in itself, was he betraying his side? No one else he knew seemed to think these things—or they were hiding it better. The bunk’s ceiling seemed to be falling on Linus as he imagined long sleek ships accelerating beyond the point of survival of unenhanced human beings, painstakingly achieving near relativistic speeds in order to make the Ozaki crossing. Most carried soldiers and weapons instead of colonists these days. It could have been so great. Yet two factions of humanity—if the others were still human—fought throughout Orion’s Arm, the end growing no nearer.