Noumenon Infinity

by Marina J. Lostetter

  “Yes,” Joanna said warmly. That’s what she’d prefer to think. “So, we need to organize probe missions. We’ve got to find those objects and determine their function.”

  “Not probes, people,” insisted Dr. Johar, her chief of science.

  “I won’t order anyone to the surface.”

  “Then ask for volunteers,” he said. “The science division has been dying for a chance like this. Let them go.”

  Though her gut told her good things were happening out there, she still didn’t feel prepared to let her crew risk coming into close proximity with the Seed or anything it might create. Johar’s use of dying struck her as particularly problematic. But she saw on the faces of those around her that giving in on this one point would raise their morale. If she wouldn’t let them kill it, she had to let them study it. Investigation was in their genes.

  After all, she’d approved an away mission before. Now she’d let them complete it.

  “All right,” she conceded. “Volunteers only. And I want to brief them personally. They have to know my concerns. Know that if I can convince them to stay, I will. And I don’t want anyone to set foot in the oceans. They can go to the surface, but they are not to personally come within a kilometer of those objects. Remote study only.”

  “Fine.”

  Joanna stood, tense, on the bridge. She never sat on duty anymore—hyperattuned to every bump and vibration the ship made, her bones couldn’t bear to stay parked.

  Though the away shuttles had disappeared from view hours ago, she continued to stare at their vanishing point, anxious for a visual sign that the teams were all right. They’d cut communication with the convoy as a precaution. They had no idea what might set off the Seed, which hung like a chrysalis only a few AUs away from the outermost planet, so they were taking no chances. Only once the teams gathered their first findings would they risk contact.

  The trajectories of the objects had been easily plotted, so the team shouldn’t have any issues locating them. She suspected there might be problems analyzing them, though. In all the centuries the convoy had spent in close proximity to the Seed, no one had ever detected such objects within. She could chalk it up to sensor failure; the Seed had never appreciated getting prodded and scanned.

  It didn’t make it easier to accept, though. The Seed had hidden these things—what else could it hide?

  When a team finally called in—from the planet they were currently calling P3—she instructed the feed to broadcast live throughout the convoy. Nothing they could find could send the crew into a panic the way her initial inaction had. For better or worse, she wanted everyone to experience the discovery at the same time.

  And there—she caught it. A twinkle of hope. The entire force of her continuum was focused on what was happening millions of kilometers away.

  She straightened her rumpled uniform—the fabric soft with overwear—and took a deep breath. “All right, go ahead.”

  The audio report was accompanied by images of the surface and the data scans.

  With the brown dwarf distant and cold, and the skies consisting of bare wisps of atmosphere, the surface lay in twilight. Muted, muddy reds and grays covered the land, punctuated by the occasional bright orange hot spot of volcanic activity. Joanna could almost smell the sulfuric acid from her command post.

  “The object here on the third planet,” began the appointed reporter, “is a compartmentalized capsule, filled with three kinds of mixtures. We’ve speculated that the greater amounts of fluids stored in the Seed previously masked its existence.

  “Each concoction in the capsule has a different ratio and combination of materials. There are three assortments. The first contains ammonia, methane, hydrogen, water, and a few other trace elements. The second set contains three different sugars, bases, and phosphates.”

  Was she imagining things, or did that second set sound familiar? Could it mean . . . ? Her cheeks burned, tender and tingly with possibility. A swell of emotion rose in her chest—one that she could not say was connected to any named feeling she’d ever had before.

  “The final set,” continued the narrator, his own voice cracking with emotion, “contains premade RNA, tRNA, and simple amino acids. There are also smaller, empty compartments located in the capsules, leading us to believe that the soups were only recently mixed. And the capsules are abuzz with electricity, clearly there to help facilitate reactions.”

  We’ve all been so, so wrong.

  It is not a Dyson Sphere.

  It is not a Star Killer.

  It is a God Machine.

  As if reading her mind, the audio chimed in, “The Seed appears to be making a system that can support life.”

  A glimmer of logic broke through the pure wave of emotion wracking Joanna’s mind. Life, life! most of her screamed, while a small fraction of her being prodded her pattern recognition centers.

  It’s too cold, her logic said. Life can’t arise around a frigid half star.

  “Get out of there!” she screamed suddenly, realization breaking through. “The Seed’s not done. Get the hell back to the fleet, now!” She turned on the communications officer. “Tell all of the teams to come back, and to leave any equipment they might have set up. It’s not worth the risk. If they don’t abandon the mission this instant, they could all die. The system needs a better sun.”

  Though they had no visuals, the crew could sense the mad dash as the away teams broke communications to adhere to her orders. Silent minutes passed. There wasn’t a living being on board not holding its breath. Everyone from the engineers to the security division, to the cows on Eden and the house cats in their cabins. Even I.C.C. seemed to still.

  Get out of there, Joanna chanted. It could happen at any moment: the Seed’s final act. The only thing left for it to do.

  The brown dwarf needed more mass. And there was only one logical way to get it, now that the Seed had emptied itself.

  Get free. Get free of the orbits.

  As if knowing it was being thought about, the Seed shifted, rotating ninety degrees to aim one pointed end at the heart of the brown dwarf.

  “Away team one,” she said after ordering a comms channel open, “are you secure? Away teams two and three, report.”

  Like a lumbering animal charging a mortal enemy, the Seed thrust forward. Its movements were languid-looking, considering the distances involved. The Seed would not reach its final destination for hours, or even days, but the ensuing gravitational ripples made the area dangerous, would give the returning shuttles trouble. Could cause them to crash back to the planets’ surfaces.

  Everyone on the bridge leaned forward, waiting, listening.

  “What’s it doing?” someone asked of the Seed.

  “Finishing the job,” Joanna said.

  She still had no visual of her people.

  “Are you secure?” she repeated. “Are you out of orbit?”

  She held her breath.

  “We’re all okay,” came the ecstatic reply.

  She clutched at her chest in relief.

  A collective cheer rang out across the bridge. ‘Flex-sheets flew into the air. Some officers clapped their approval. Others jumped to their feet.

  “Yes,” Joanna said to herself. “We’re all okay.”

  Joanna stared at the Seed as she never had before, filled both with dread and admiration, but not disgust. Their great enemy was about to perform a sacrifice—to cast itself in the brown dwarf to provide the would-be sun with enough mass to begin its fusion. The convoy’s long history with the Seed was coming to an end. Soon no trace of the alien artifact, no record of the trillions of hours of construction or the great struggle of their pursuit, would remain.

  The brown dwarf ate the megastructure with glee, burgeoning. Bit by long bit, the Seed disappeared, gone forever, consumed in a swirling soup of dark gasses and bright fires. The star expanded, and the four planets fell into tighter orbits—the three rocky planets descending into what had to be the habitable zone. Each fo
gged as the greenhouse effect took hold and created thick atmospheres. The gas giant’s orbit changed as well, but it remained far afield of the other planets, sweeping the vicinity, like a protective sibling, gobbling up extra debris to prevent it from raining down on its rocky neighbors.

  This gas giant would do for this system what Jupiter did for Sol’s.

  The moons made sense now. Bigger moons played an important role in orbit stability and reduced planet wobble—she knew that much about planetology. Large moons even helped regulate climate.

  Stability, safety . . . both important factors, when concerned with a planet’s suitability for life.

  At least two civilizations had been disrupted to bring this system into existence. She’d risked her command, her crew, her mental well-being to see the Web’s legacy through to the end. She couldn’t wait to see what these planets had in store for the convoy, for Earth—for the galaxy.

  The crew of Convoy Seven were happier than they’d been in years, excited for the exploration and study to come. Joanna herself was awed, overwhelmed. The sense of wonder would not leave her, and she basked in the feeling.

  And, finally, she could put her father’s ghost to rest. She’d been able to accomplish what no other Joanna had even dreamed of. She hadn’t succeeded where others had failed—instead, she’d sought her own path.

  She’d been raised a warrior, but it was the heart of an explorer that beat in her chest, and its desires had saved them all.

  Chapter Eleven

  Vanhi: The Universe Is No Wilderness

  Convoy Twelve

  Seven Hundred and Thirty-One Days Since the Accident

  Vanhi felt like a ping-pong ball.

  Back and forth, back and forth. One minute she was in the EOL talking to Gabriel, or eating lunch, or walking through the hall. The next she was by Stone’s side. She’d get a few uninterrupted weeks—sometimes months—and then she’d disappear again, winking out of existence only to appear in Stone’s presence what felt like moments later. Only it wasn’t moments. It wasn’t even minutes or hours or days.

  The length of her absence was getting longer with every jump.

  Seconds ago—she could have sworn, only seconds—the convoy-wide emergency alert had sounded.

  What had happened before then? Think, Vanhi, think. Her short-term memory recall was always stunted right after a jump, which only heightened her sense of disorientation.

  She’d been working on an experiment pod. Right. Checking the AI’s threshold for SD propagation containment, when Dalisay Ocampo had come in with a sizzling shock baton and ushered her out of the shuttle maintenance hangar. Vanhi had demanded an explanation, told her Captain Tan would hear of this, and Dalisay had laughed. Not at Vanhi, per se. It wasn’t a cruel laugh, it was self-satisfied. Almost relieved in its effervescence.

  Mutiny! Vanhi remembered. Captain Baglanova had taken control—or had he only tried?

  Now, in the blink of an eye, all was quiet once again. But her heart was still hammering at her insides, her adrenaline still surged. She was ready for a fight, a struggle, but the room around her lay calm.

  She was no longer on Breath. This was Pulse for sure—she’d recognize those blue-and-red walls anywhere.

  Stone’s quarters were slowly getting brighter. The dimmer was automatically bringing up the lights to mimic sunrise. He was still in bed, covers half on, half off, with one naked leg dangling over the side of the mattress. His chest rose and fell steadily.

  She quickly leaned over him. Not to rouse him, but to get a better look out the window.

  The Lùhng ships seemed farther away than she remembered. But they were still there.

  Stone made an endearing whimper, like a puppy, before snorting awake.

  Willing her heart to slow and her breath to steady, she kissed him on the forehead.

  When she started to pull away he stopped her, wiped the sleep from his eyes, and said, “Thank god. I was so worried. When they couldn’t find you, I’d hoped you’d jumped.”

  “Shh. It’s okay, I’m here. What happened?”

  He sat up and put his arms around her. He smelled warm and spicy. “Yeah, everything’s okay now. Well, not okay, but it’s not worse, at least. Let me start the non-Joe, and I’ll tell you everything.”

  Non-Joe was what they called the strange brew of hot water, caffeine pills, and artificial kahlua flavoring that served as convoy coffee. Not many people prepared it on the regular, but Stone liked to be shocked awake.

  Throwing off the covers, perfectly comfortable in nothing but his tags and birthday suit—So different from that time in the shower, Vanhi thought fondly—he scratched at his bare backside and dragged his feet all the way into the kitchenette. While he worked, he detailed the mutiny for her, as well as he understood the events.

  “The conspirators on Pulse gave up almost as soon as the order was given. Baglanova . . . he didn’t make it.”

  “He’s dead?”

  Stone nodded.

  She let that sink in for a moment, then asked, “And where are the rest of the perpetrators now?”

  “En el Oso Blanco de Convoy Doce.”

  She shook her head, confused.

  “The brig, Vanhi. They’re in the brig. Where else would they be?”

  “Dead, too,” she said flatly.

  “Well, some are. Went down in the fight. But Tan doesn’t believe in the death penalty, especially now that . . .” he trailed off. “You sure you don’t want a cup?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “No. Wait, actually, let me change that to ‘Hell, no.’”

  He shrugged, grabbing his full mug and strolling back over to the bed to sit beside her. He very modestly pulled a blanket across his legs.

  “You’ve been gone for about—” He wriggled his fingers in the air, as though he didn’t know exactly how long it had been off the top of his head. “Six weeks and three days. Give or take. Right, Broki?”

  “Right, Stone.”

  Vanhi smiled. “Broki?”

  “Yeah. C’s my little buddy.” He smiled into his mug. “Don’t make fun of me—you make it call you ‘sir.’” He stood up rigidly and saluted, the gesture made all the more ridiculous by his nakedness. “Yes, sir, Vanhi, sir.”

  She playfully stuck her tongue out at him.

  “Anyway, since then we’ve only heard from the Lùhng once.” He took a swig of his non-Joe and grimaced.

  “And?”

  “And they pretty much put us in our place. Now that our SD drives are all but lifeless pieces of junk, we’re stuck, no question. They informed us Earth itself told them not to interfere with us, save when essential, because of—and this is a direct quote—the ‘volatile nature of Homo sapiens.’ Well, we went and proved them right, didn’t we? Good ol’ volatile humans, ready to lash out violently because we’re uncomfortable.”

  “So they no longer consider themselves Homo sapiens?”

  “No. They didn’t give us a new designation, but Justice has taken to calling them Homo draconem.”

  “Their message also suggests that . . . that there aren’t any Homo sapiens anymore.”

  “That is the assumption we’re working with, yes. But I guess we’ll learn more when the Progentor arrives.”

  Vanhi didn’t know how to feel about any of this. She thought that such a severe revelation—the extinction of her entire species—might manifest as a gut punch or nausea, or delirium. But it felt abstract—too unreal to be real. Like suggesting that the sun had been replaced with star anise or that SD drives were fueled by tacos: ridiculous.

  Tan doesn’t believe in the death penalty, especially now . . . now that we’re the only Homo sapiens left alive.

  “Justice’s theory—” she said, “about the crew, our infertility, has she come to a firm conclusion yet?”

  “Everyone who’s hit puberty has to submit for mandatory testing now, so she can be sure. I went in last week.” He rubbed at his face. “I can make your appointment, if you’d like.”r />
  Her old guilt reared its head.

  Whatever had happened to the rest of humanity—whether it had all evolved into something new, or had died out—she couldn’t take the blame for that, no. But she had undoubtedly condemned the crew to a reality without people. They were the last of their kind, members of a soon-to-be extinct species found roaming in the wilderness, starving and homeless.

  No wonder the Lùhng had stuck to them like ticks. No wonder the post-humans had seemed distant, estranged.

  She and many others had thought their separatism a sign of disrespect or disinterest, when really the Lùhng had shown great restraint. If Earth had ordered them not to interfere, they hadn’t listened, not really. They’d probably had to justify every interaction as being essential to Convoy Twelve survival, even when, truthfully, it had been to sate their own curiosity.

  “What’s . . . what’s a Pro-gentor?” she asked suddenly, almost absently. She was trying to assimilate too much new information at once.

  “We’re not sure. Carmen says Kali finger spelled it, so who knows if that’s even really what they were trying to say. I think maybe it’s a ship, carrying government officials or something. Justice thinks . . .” He went quiet.

  “What? What does she think?”

  “She’s just worried,” he said quietly. “I don’t think she really believes it. We were speculating . . .”

  “Tell me.”

  He sighed. “Maybe it’s a weapon. Something more effective than their ‘whump.’ Not to kill us, but maybe to control us.” He waved the idea away, as though he didn’t want to deal with it. “Whatever it is, the Lùhng have sworn off interacting with us until it gets here.”

  She shook her head and looked out the window again. His words were starting to burrow in. She fisted the blankets, and after a moment realized she was shaking.