by Patty Jansen
“Because I need you to see it.”
Dumb question, Mr Wilson.
“Because I need you to use it.”
Thayu took in an audible breath and turned sharply to us.
“As I said, the people on this Aghyrian ship will not speak to us directly. This man called Kando Luczon, and his crew, regard us as an inferior class of humans, having originated in their experimental facilities. So I’m sending someone I trust not to come with underlying political agendas on behalf of an ineffective group that fancies itself important.” He flicked his eyebrows. Whoa, that was one of the most sarcastic jokes I’d heard from him.
“I’m guessing I am that someone.”
“You may be guessing correctly.”
Holy shit. My heart was hammering.
“This is why I want you to see this. I want you to understand that we will defend our home world against these people until the very last person left alive. I want you to understand that we regard the attack on our Exchange as hostile, and that we will consider further attacks hostile actions. I want you to appreciate that we have considerable means to stop these people. They’re only three thousand, and we’re not afraid of them.”
Evidently. “But they could bring a lot of knowledge that would be to the benefit of all of us.”
“They could, but history is not in favour of the option that they will share it.”
“Have they not left their technology behind for you to use?”
“That was because they had no choice. They had to leave. They would have taken all their technology with them if they’d had the chance. They still consider the technology theirs. They consider us their creations, to do with as they wish.”
His eyes met mine when he said that. The seriousness in his expression sent a chill down my spine. If up to now I hadn’t believed the strength of his feelings on this subject, I certainly did feel it now.
Coldi were no one’s property, and no one within any of the gamra worlds would stand for the idea that they were. If anything—if the gamra worlds knew about this—that attitude would galvanise support behind him. We were treading on very, very dangerous ground.
While he explained to me the principles of the sling in layman’s terms, we walked slowly over the elevated walkway. The basic operation of the sling was that this giant ship had both the strength and precision to generate a one-sided anpar line without the need of an anchor node on the receiving side. The ship itself did not move, but it provided the means for other ships to jump.
We came to a spot where the tubes fed into a huge torus-shaped chamber. It was quiet here, from which I surmised that the machine was not currently operating. I had a sneaking suspicion that it was probably not safe to stand here during operation.
When he finished explaining, he led us out of the room, down another staircase. The doors at the bottom were full of warnings. We went into a little room where we changed into protective suits of a heavy material that I suspected were shielding for radiation. A crewmember gave us facemasks and breathing apparatus. The air inside the tanks was, as everything related to Asto, uncomfortably warm. Fortunately, the suit was fairly loose, but I still felt drops of sweat run down my back.
We went through a kind of air lock into another large room that resembled a factory hall but didn’t appear to have a well-defined floor and was probably designed for operation in zero-g conditions. In the middle hung a giant concrete bunker encased in a metal framework. The surrounding air was so misty that, with the haze and the scratched surface of the facemask’s visor, I couldn’t see the bottom.
“We store a micro gravity-well in here,” Ezhya said, sounding muffled inside his mask. “This is why this ship has gravity. Mind you, the vast majority of the space inside that bunker is taken up by distribution shields and other protective and gravity-diffusing measures, otherwise we couldn't stand here. The size of the well is no bigger than a grain of sand.” A touch screen encased on a sleeve of clear material sat on the upper balustrade railing. It came to life with a tap of his glove, displaying a squiggly line readout.
I stared at that bunker. Was he really saying that it contained a very small black hole?
“The gravity well is our shield and energy source at the same time. With space shielding, the problem is getting rid of excess heat. We simply feed it into this chamber and the gravity well absorbs the heat, or ionised particles, or anything that collects on the shields. It produces a massive amount of radiation. Also, when the highly energised particles hit the well’s event horizon, they sometimes have so much energy that they split into matter and antimatter. If the matter particle drops into the well before the antimatter particle, it produces a tiny amount of antimatter. It would be a tiny speck on the nail of your little toe, but that’s what powers the sling, and the ship’s engine, and all the equipment you see in here. It is vital that this ship keeps moving, and the more stuff that hits those shields, the more energy we’ll have. This is the ultimate war ship.”
The statement barely concealed the underlying horror. The “more stuff” that might hit the shields could be fire from enemy weapons, but also entire enemy ships. “Why are you telling me this?”
“This is technology that we developed independent of the legacy left to us by the Aghyrian people. When I send you to speak to them, I want them to know this. I want them to know what we can do—what we won’t hesitate to do if necessary.”
Yes, this was typical Coldi bluff. My understanding of them, on that issue at least, had been correct.
We toured several other parts of the ship—mercifully without further need for those protective suits—each containing some marvel of technology that I’d never known existed, most of them for military use. I asked few questions, realising the special position I’d been granted to see this. Thayu was quiet, but I was certain that she absorbed each word Ezhya said.
At the end, Ezhya led us back to the docking area. The shuttle that had brought us was gone—had it gone back to Barresh? And where was Sheydu?—and in the middle of the floor stood a simple sleek vessel.
It looked like a transport shuttle but it was my bet that it had been extensively modified inside. The door stood open.
“This is where I leave you,” Ezhya said. “I’m sending three of my guards with you.”
Our eyes met. I didn’t have the heart to remind him what happened last time that I went with some of his guards.
“The lady can go with you, too; you need a zhayma. But none of them can go with you into the Aghyrian ship.”
“I’m all right to go alone if they want to talk with me.”
He nodded, silently, in a this worries me kind of way. “You will have to go alone, seeing as they won’t accept us anywhere near their ships. It pains me that I’m not giving you enough time to prepare, and I’m unable to give you any more support. The launch window is quite narrow.”
“All right, then, let’s do it.”
He dug in his pocket and handed me a feeder, metallic black to resemble Coldi hair. “Take this. I will use it to stay in contact with you for as long as I can, but the Aghyrian ship blocks all communication. Once you’re inside, you’re on your own.”
I took the feeder from him and lifted it to the back of my head. The tentacles latched onto my hair and climbed up until the bottom of the “body” settled on my skin. The customary burst of warmth came with shards of Ezhya’s thinking. I suddenly realised he’d used dhoya pronouns on me for most of our discussion, and I hadn’t even noticed.
And as we walked up the shuttle’s gangplank something else occurred to me: he wouldn’t have asked for my help if he hadn’t run into some sort of insurmountable problem.
Of course he wouldn’t, Thayu said while we went into the ship. And do you notice that it’s not like him to stay behind while others do the work? And that we haven’t met my father yet?
Damn it, she was right about both observations, and they left me deeply cold inside.
Inside the cabin, the pilot already
sat at the controls, and two others were on the seats behind the pilot’s.
We sat down and one of the seconds came to help us with the elaborate seat belts that went so tight around my belly that it became hard to breathe. Over the top of the seat belt went a thick cover that was so heavy that it felt like it stuck to my skin. The material was squishy and the soldier tucked it in around me, and strapped the material around my legs. I guessed visiting the toilet was now no longer an option. I was also getting really hot. How long was this flight going to take?
I was still hungry.
Thayu’s face looked paler than before.
“All ready?” Ezhya said from the door.
“Ready,” one of his soldiers repeated.
Ezhya retreated and the door shut with a thud that enclosed us in a bubble of warm and stuffy air. The ceiling vents came on, blowing warm but dry air over my face.
The pilot was busy talking to the comm operations. He wore a military uniform with a couple of gold dots on his chest. Quite a high-ranking pilot, I guessed.
Thayu looked at me from her restrained position. Only higher rankings get to use the sling.
That made sense.
Why doesn’t the pilot use one of these suits?
She didn’t know, but I could feel through the feeder that the thought disturbed her.
What about Veyada and Sheydu?
She didn’t know.
The floor of the craft vibrated with the roar of the engine. The forward viewscreen showed the hall outside, where people were retreating from the craft. The vibration increased in strength. Slowly, we rose into the air and then moved forward in the direction of the gaping void of space. Sweat trickled down the side of my face. It irritated me, but I couldn’t wipe it away, since my hands had been strapped in and I was covered in a gel-filled suit.
Something made a zooming sound in the cabin. From both side walls came two sliding doors that closed the area between us and the pilot. Ah, I saw. The craft wasn’t usually kitted out to take passengers and only the front of the cabin was pressure controlled. Where we sat was not. Hence the suits.
I glanced at Thayu.
This is going to be safe, isn’t it?
If it’s not, it’s too late now.
I like your optimism.
The roar of the engine increased and I sensed movement, although it was hard to tell in which direction.
“We’re off,” Thayu mouthed.
Good luck to us.
Chapter 21
* * *
THE CABIN HAD NO window, and no data stream told us where we were. It surprised me how claustrophobic that was, in addition to the pressure suit that made me feel hot. There were also, I noticed with rising panic, no barf bags, and I felt with increasing certainty that I was going to need one.
But when I closed my eyes my vision faded to be replaced with an image of Ezhya facing me.
“What the hell?” I opened my eyes again and tried to sit up but I was too tightly strapped into my seat. I could only see the closed partition in front of my seat and even that I didn’t see very well because my vision had gone blurry. “Thayu, are you still there?”
“What’s the matter?” I could hear her voice well enough, but I couldn’t see her, because again I was seeing Ezhya instead. He looked at me sideways while walking through a passage with metal walls as in the ship we’d just left.
“I’m seeing—”
Ezhya’s voice cut in. “This is a new development in feeder technology.”
Now feeders could infringe on our vision and not just on our thoughts. Great. Wearing one of these, you’d never again have any privacy. What if you needed to go to the loo? Oh, I forgot, Coldi observed no privacy in that quarter either.
“My apologies if it distresses you, but it’s the quickest way to brief you on our involvement with the Aghyrian ship while you’re travelling. There are some things you need to know before your arrival.”
Oh yes, here it was. All those things I hadn’t been told that would put me in mortal danger and that, if I’d known prior to departure, would have made me think twice before going. How did they expect me to do my job like this?
On the other hand, it was not as if I’d ever had any choice in the matter.
Damn it, why did I always get myself into these situations? Moreover, how could I get myself out of them? Preferably alive.
“The material you obtained from Trader Federza’s office was part of a conversation the Barresh group of Aghyrians had with the ship. But we were the first to speak with them and were the first to have visual contact with the ship.”
“I’m gathering that did not go well?” The Coldi propensity to posture made them terrible negotiators. This feeder Ezhya had given me had some nifty technology. As well as visuals, it included the function of a regular feeder.
“I can see what you’re thinking, but we were not the aggressors.”
“What the army’s intentions were is of less importance than how their actions were perceived by the ship.” I couched my observations in careful terms. On occasions like this I was unsure what my status with him was. On the one hand, he controlled my life with a single command. On the other, it seemed to amuse him that I would say things no one else dared tell him, and often I felt that this was indeed my function.
“I understand that. The dignitaries at gamra seem to think that the inhabitants of this ship are benevolent.”
“The official line has been that we’ve assumed nothing until the identity of the ship could be established. It had been acting like an auto-operated random piece of debris.” And, if the Coldi had known otherwise for quite some time, why hadn’t gamra been told?
“The current situation developed quickly. Their captain, Kando Luczon, is a vindictive man. By all tests we’ve been able to run, he is the same captain who condemned tens of thousands to their deaths because he would not take extra refugees on board. They’ve been to another galaxy. They’ve probably made enemies there. They are not here to negotiate, but they are here to take. But I’ll show you so you can judge for yourself.”
Ezhya had arrived at a small room where all the walls were taken up with screens and other electronic equipment. Scrolling text flickered over the screen. A serious-faced man sat behind the controls.
At a sign from Ezhya, he hit a button and all of a sudden I was in the control room of another ship. This was a slightly larger vessel than the one I was in, maybe one of those that accompanied us. Three people were at the controls, a pilot and two copilots. Instead of the darkness of space, a blaze of light was coming in through the front viewscreen. The entire viewscreen was taken up by some sort of structure: the outer skin of a ship, and the light came from the craft’s flood lights hitting the hull of this giant ship and reflecting back into the cabin. The crew were silent, staring at the screen, where features on the outside of the ship outside slowly scrolled past.
Their faces showed up as pale ovals, wide-eyed.
One of the copilots pointed. “That’s the front of the engine chamber.”
Another nodded. I realised that they were probably in possession of the same plan as I had seen in the material from Federza’s office.
The copilot asked, “Are those weapons?”
“You’d expect a ship like this to be armed,” the pilot said.
“At this size, what can possibly make any kind of impression on that ship?”
“A small shuttle, full of explosives, flown into the dock.”
“They’d have to be an impressive kind of explosive—”
“Contact,” someone said.
The viewpoint swung around. There was a fourth person in the cabin—this instantly made the ship bigger still, because if there was a fourth person at the controls, there would be another three people on board. No way Coldi would travel here without a complete association.
This fourth person sat behind a comm station. Lines wriggled over the screen in front of her.
“We’re getting a response fro
m the ship.”
“Any way of knowing if it’s an auto-responder?”
“Not at this stage.”
“Send another ping,” the main pilot said.
Her hands went over the controls.
A moment later, another burst of wriggles zigzagged over her screen.
“Whoa!” She pushed her earpiece down. “That was loud.”
“What was it?”
“Some sort of pulsating tone.”
“Any idea what it means?” one of the copilots asked. She looked over her shoulder, turning her back on the main viewscreen, which, at that very moment, flashed red. The glow lit the cabin.
“What the hell!” the main pilot yelled.
Various alarms started beeping in the cabin. Lights flashed on the controls.
The second copilot was frantically searching through information screens.
“Anything damaged?” the pilot asked.
“The link to base is out.”
“Re-establish it.”
She gave him a what do you think I’m doing? look.
The comm officer said, “I’m getting an incoming signal.”
“Decode.”
“I’m trying. Doesn’t make any sense so far.”
“Is it auto-generated?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Send out our handshake beacon.”
“I tried; it’s not going through—oh, wait. I’m getting a response now.” She read on the screen for a while, her face lit blue from below. “They’re talking about right of way, and Aghyr. Damn, it looks like it is the old ship.”
“The very same one?”
“It seems so.”
“Is anyone alive on board?”
“I don’t know. Can’t tell. My infrared scans are being blocked.”
“Try sending the stripped code.”
She worked for a bit on the screen, scrolling down, checking menus. Then she said, “Code sent.”
They waited. No one spoke. The only sound in the cabin was the hiss of air from the recycling vents.
I wondered what code they were talking about. Obviously they knew a lot more about the ship than we did. With the vast wealth of data excavated on Asto, that shouldn’t surprise me.
