by James Gunn
“If we perish,” Asha said, “as we may, we will leave heirs behind us.”
“That is a noble and probably foolhardy mission,” Latha said, “but what does that have to do with us?”
“We need you to work with the Pedia to help prepare Earth for the coming crisis,” Asha said. “It is a task that will last for generations. The Pedia can work at it that long, but people must be prepared for the long haul. That’s where you and the Anons come in. Your conspiracy has endured for a long time, so you can transform your movement into something positive.”
“I want to go with them,” Latha’s son said.
“No, Adithya,” Latha said.
“We will talk about this,” Adithya said.
“And you will take a part of me with you,” the Pedia said.
CHAPTER TWO
The red, spherical, million-year-old spaceship orbited the roofed-in planet in the impoverished solar system known only as Federation Central. The faded star that had assembled clouds of interstellar dust and gas into worlds when it was younger and livelier attracted no attention from curious minds across the galaxy. The galaxy thrived on energy, liquid water, and a nourishing mixture of atmospheric gases, and there was none of that on Federation Central.
Which is why it had been chosen and its location kept a secret except to an invited few.
And why the presence of the spaceship caused such consternation in the corridors and gathering places of Federation Central.
None of the assorted aliens who made up the bureaucracy that kept Federation Central functioning, or the representatives who made the decisions, or the Pedia that provided the information on which the decisions were made and did all the actual work of seeing them implemented—none of them knew how the spaceship, stranger than anything they had ever encountered, had found its way into orbit undetected.
“I am continually surprised,” Riley said, “by the abilities of this ship. When I approached Earth I was taking precautions not to be observed, but this ship has the ability to frustrate surveillance, either by sending back false signals or absorbing whatever signals it encounters.”
“There is something strange about this vessel,” said the medallion on Asha’s chest.
“‘Strange’ is a good word for it,” Asha said, looking around at the rosy plastic material that had shaped itself to its understanding of their needs.
“As if there are a million tiny voices talking to each other,” the medallion said.
“It is something new to all of us,” Riley said. “Intelligent matter.”
“But they do not talk to me,” the medallion said.
“Maybe you will learn their language,” Asha said. “Or they will learn yours.”
“While we’re waiting for that to happen, we should do something about Federation Central—before the bureaucrats, the council, or the Pedia decide to blow us out of space,” Riley said.
“The Pedia on this world is very powerful and very old and very cautious,” the medallion said. “It has had two hundred thousand long-cycles to add to its memory and capabilities and calculating power and two hundred thousand long-cycles to contemplate its existence, but it has not yet lost its curiosity. And the potential value of this ship has not yet been exceeded by its threat.”
“Open a channel of communication to the Federation Central Pedia,” Asha said. She was speaking to the window in the space that the red sphere had shaped out of itself to serve as a control system suitable for human use. Originally it had responded only to Riley, but now it had accepted Asha as an equally authoritative voice, and, in a lesser way, to Adithya and Jer, who were standing silent nearby. “This is the Earth ship Adastra,” she said, “named after the first generation ship from Earth that was intercepted and interned by Federation forces. We have come with gifts of new technology for the Federation and a request of consequence and considerable urgency to place before the council.”
After a pause only slightly longer than the delay dictated by distance, a reply arrived. “Federation Central has no record of an Earth ship of this designation or description.”
“This is its first entry into Federation space,” Asha said, “and we are applying for registration.” The medallion rattled off, in a perfect imitation of Asha’s voice, a series of numbers.
“Registered,” the precise voice of Federation Central replied. “Also registered is a crime against Federation regulations, approaching Federation Central without authorization with an unknown device that frustrates Federation sensors.”
“That,” Asha said, “is one of the technologies we plan to share with the Federation.”
“And what are the other technologies?”
“Those we will discuss with the council.”
“The council is occupied with more important matters,” the Federation Central Pedia replied.
“The silent stars,” Asha said. “We hope to discuss those with the council as well.”
“You are not council members.”
“That is true,” Asha said, “but the council will want to hear us. We understand that our request must be approved by an appropriate council representative, but if the council wishes to learn how the Adastra managed to insert itself into orbit around Federation Central without being noticed, and about other technologies recently perfected on Earth, it will listen to us.”
The pause that followed extended into excruciating minutes.
“What are the odds,” Adithya said, “that a missile has not already been launched to destroy us?”
“Far more likely,” Jer said, “that a missile already in orbit has been redirected. That’s what my father would have done. A missile sent from a planet allows too much time for evasion or countermeasures or even a counterattack. We are the realization of the Federation’s worst nightmare.”
“Your father’s paranoia is well known,” Asha said. “It is one of his most dependable—and endearing—qualities.”
“I don’t understand why we couldn’t have undertaken this mission on our own,” Adithya said.
“We need to head off the expedition the Federation is assembling,” Riley said. “Its actions and its fate can’t be predicted, but the outcome leans toward the catastrophic.”
“Moreover,” Asha said, “if we manage to return with useful information, we want the Federation prepared to receive it—even to act upon it, if action is desirable. That means Federation authorization.”
“Nevertheless—” Adithya began.
He was interrupted by the medallion on Asha’s chest. “Something has lifted off of Federation Central,” it said.
Just then the message came. “A shuttle has been dispatched to bring two representatives of the Adastra to meet with a representative of the council.”
Asha turned to Adithya and Jer. “You two will stay here,” she said. “If we do not return within twenty-four hours, or send a message that all is well, tell the ship to return to Earth. Take the ship back to your father,” she said to Jer. “You and he will have to decide what to do then.”
She looked at Riley. “The last two times I was here, things did not go so well. Let’s hope the representative we meet is more reasonable.”
The representative, it turned out, was Tordor.
* * *
The meager world that had become known as Federation Central was like the bureaucracy that lived under its metal roof: it had developed slowly over the long-cycles until it covered almost the entire planet, appearing invulnerable from without but calcifying within. Even the shuttle pilots had become immune to surprise, and the pilot that transported Riley and Asha to the one remaining open space on Federation Central was no exception. The weasel-like Xifor did not express any emotion except its customary bored indifference mixed with sly paranoia when the red sphere extended a rosy arm that latched, like a lover’s mouth, on the shuttle’s airlock and Riley and Asha passed through it. The pilot was not the same Xifor that Asha had selected when she left Federation Central in haste a long-cycle ago—tha
t would have been too much of a coincidence and one that would have raised suspicions about Federation Central’s Pedia—but the spaceport was the same and so was the dowdy reception area, with its sitting and standing facilities for aliens of all shapes and constitutions, its breathing tubes, and its feeding choices, and its formidable bureaucratic gauntlet of identity and authorization checks.
What was not the same was the Dorian who met them. All Dorians look alike to other species—the bulk of the heavy-planet herbivore, the gray skin, the pachydermian shape and short, restless trunk. But Asha had learned to note individual variations as she was growing up a prisoner of Federation guards on another planet of the Federation Central system, and during the long journey of the Geoffrey to find the Transcendental Machine. “Tordor!” she said.
“What a surprise!” Riley said. “When we left you in that alien city, we thought we all were goners.”
“Indeed,” Tordor said. “For me, as well. But when I learned about the ship that had such strange shape and abilities, and its registration as the Adastra, I thought of you, Riley, and, of course, you, Asha.”
He did not seem excited by the reunion, Asha thought, but his trunk was twitching in a way that Asha had learned to associate with Dorian emotion. If Tordor was here, however, he had passed through the Transcendental Machine like Asha and Riley, and, with his new abilities to think without distraction and to analyze and modify his own behavior, he might well be able to simulate what had once been innate.
“Come,” Tordor said, escorting them past the bureaucratic control system. “We have an appointment, and I will tell you as we travel.”
Federation Central, Asha discovered, offered a third way to travel its labyrinthine sprawl. Besides the monorail embedded in the common corridors and the secret, individual system Asha had discovered behind her father’s office, there were private rapid-transit options for very important people. Of whom, apparently, Tordor was one. A door at one side of the reception area opened for them, revealing a capsule of a size suitable for the two of them in addition to Tordor’s bulk. Tordor stood, his hand around a pole, his tail braced against the wall. He indicated with his short trunk the wall of the capsule, where projected images illustrated which places to touch in order to produce suitable seating or standing arrangements. When Riley and Asha were seated, Tordor touched another place on the wall, and the capsule began moving, slowly at first and then picking up speed until the walls of the tube that enclosed them began to blur.
Asha took her gaze away from the walls and looked at Tordor. His trunk was swaying restlessly.
“I left you on the avenues of the city of the Transcendental Machine,” Tordor said. The capsule must have been propelled by external power and the tube evacuated of air, because the passage was almost silent and his voice was quiet. “I admit that my motives were selfish. We had fought off an attack by arachnoids, but it was clear another was coming and then another if that was unsuccessful.”
“True,” Riley said.
“You thought they would pursue us and leave you free to seek the shrine of the Transcendental Machine,” Asha said.
“I admit it,” Tordor said. “It was an action unworthy of a noble species, but I rationalized my decision as doing my duty to all Dorians and to the Federation.”
“And to the secret orders you had received,” Riley said.
Tordor swished his trunk in a way that Asha had learned meant agreement. “And that I only learned, after my return, were from the Pedia itself.”
“We must talk about that later,” Asha said.
“The arachnoids attacked, as we expected, and I followed, at a safe distance, until I saw you disappear into an old building.”
“The shrine of the Transcendental Machine,” Asha said.
“The arachnoids were milling around outside when they seemed to notice other prey,” Tordor said. “I thought they might have heard or scented me, but they headed off in another direction, toward what may have been members of the Geoffrey party. I got to the building and went in—and, like you, entered the Transcendental Machine and found myself on a planet remote from civilization where it took me several long-cycles to get back. Apparently you were more adept, perhaps because you had done this before. When I arrived I learned that you had been here and had left.”
“I was looking for Riley,” Asha said, “and found my father.”
“Who was not the man you left some long-cycles before,” Tordor said.
“He was older,” Asha said.
“And wiser,” Tordor said. “He is doing well, but he does not mention you.”
“It is better that he forgets,” Asha said, “and then he will not have to deal with the guilt he has buried beneath a veneer of Federation acceptance.”
“We have arrived,” Tordor said.
The capsule slowed and came to a stop. Tordor led the way into an assembly hall filled with aliens of every size and shape imaginable, from heavily muscled Dorians to small, quick Xifora, barrel-shaped Sirians, birdlike Alpha Centaurans, and many more, seated, standing, or reclining in tiers that ranged upward from a floor whose center was bare, like a sacrificial pit, to an elevated station at the far end of the long hall. It was a scene that few members of the Federation had ever witnessed and no nonmember species except her father, Asha thought. He had stood bravely before this group and tried to convince them that humans were fit to join the Federation and could bring to it their youthful vigor, their soaring imaginations, and their sturdy survival skills. And only filled his listeners with apprehension.
It was little wonder that he had retreated from that mistake and tried to block from his mind his part in launching a ten-year galactic war that had killed millions. Now she and Riley had to convince these imperious but frightened council members to let them represent the Federation in its search for answers to the silent stars.
The hall was a stench of alien exudations and a cacophony of alien voices shouting alien sounds that came in waves against the ears of Riley and Asha, mixed with fragments of translation into Galactic Standard by some unseen mechanism.
“Stay here.” Tordor signaled to them and made his way through the tiers until he reached the place at the far peak. “The council will come to order,” he said, his voice amplified.
Tordor was the council head.
* * *
The noise level slowly declined.
“You have requested a hearing before the council,” Tordor said. His voice had changed from conversational to formal and from guttural Dorian to neutral Galactic Standard. “But first you must convince us why we should listen to a criminal and an assassin.”
“People do what they must in wartime,” Asha said. Her voice, like Tordor’s, was magnified by unseen means. She felt like a beast released into an arena to be tormented before it was sacrificed in some savage rite. “The truce signed with my people requires amnesty for acts done during and preceding combat.”
“And yet you continue to break our laws,” Tordor said, “including entering this protected system with a ship constructed to avoid detection.”
“We will address that in its turn,” Asha said, “but the most pressing issue before this august assembly is the silence from the farthest reaches of the Federation, a silence that our best minds believe is caused by an incursion by unknown invaders, either from another spiral arm or from another galaxy.”
The gathering stirred and the noise level increased. Creatures shifted in their places. Odors multiplied.
“Such speculations do more harm than good,” Tordor said. The hall quieted.
“And yet the Federation is gathering an expeditionary force to possibly repel intruders,” Riley said.
“Such actions, if they exist, are beyond your position to evaluate or observe,” Tordor said.
“As citizens we cannot avoid doing both,” Asha said. “And informing you that this expedition is likely to make the situation worse, by destroying a benign incursion, turning it into something malignant, or bein
g destroyed.”
“And what do you propose instead,” Tordor said.
“That we be allowed to investigate first,” Riley said.
“Why should you succeed where others have not?” Tordor said.
“We have assembled a unique crew prepared to deal with the unknown, perhaps the unknowable, and a ship especially equipped to approach unnoticed, as you have seen,” Riley said. “If we do not return or if we return with bad news, you still are free to act with brute force.”
“A ship,” a Sirian in a position not far from Tordor rumbled in language that an unseen mechanism, perhaps the Federation Central Pedia, translated into Galactic Standard for each individual listener in the assembly, “that must be surrendered to Federation control and investigation.”
“The ship is an essential part of our exploration,” Riley said, “and turning it over to you would do you no good.”
“Our scientists are capable of understanding anything humans can create,” a Xifor replied.
“The ship is constructed of something unprecedented in Federation—or human—understanding: intelligent matter,” Riley said. “And it responds only to me or my companion. But we will give you a sample that your scientists can study.”
He ran his hand across the shoulder of his jacket. Part of what had appeared to be cloth came away. Council members closest to the floor shrank back. Others, farther from the floor, called out for guards. Riley shaped the material into a ball and dropped it. It hit the floor and bounced back into his hand. Council members shouted and rose to flee. “You will notice,” Riley said, “that this material bounces higher than the position from which it was dropped, something only possible by a release of energy from within the object.”
He took the ball and smoothed it into a thin sheet and then tossed it into the air. It settled on his shoulder in the shape of a parrot, opened its beak, and squawked. Riley raised his hand and the parrot flew from its perch toward the place where Tordor stood, settled in front of the Dorian, and dissolved into a sheet once more.
