Nearspace Trilogy

by Sherry D. Ramsey

  Although she’d travelled at least one wormhole before—the one between Nanear and Anar—she came up to the bridge for our first skip together. It took us from the Lambda Saggitae system to Sol, and Cerevare made complimentary remarks about the skip, what she saw of the system, and our collective skills. She turned out to be quite adept at quozit, liked to talk about Earthside fashion with Maja, and generally got along with everyone.

  I happened upon her deep in conversation with Hirin and Viss one evening in the galley. I’d been reading, not for escape but for enjoyment, and came down to the galley for a cold drink before retiring.

  As I entered the galley, I heard Hirin say, “But how much is known, and how much is speculation?”

  Cerevare shrugged. A steaming mug of something sat on the table near her right hand, and she toyed with crumbs on a small plate as she spoke. I suspected they’d been sharing out the last of a batch of crunchy solanto cookies she’d surprised us by baking the day before. They were brown-sugar-sweet, like Mexican coyotas, but filled with roga-nut spice from Renata and drizzled with a sweet glaze.

  “The question of how much is known has a simple answer: not very much. Incredible amounts of data have survived since the time of the Chron War, but none of it sheds any light on what prompted the Chron to enter Nearspace and attack its inhabitants, or what they hoped to gain by so doing.”

  “Or why they broke off the war so suddenly and completely,” added Viss. His own plate held even more crumbs than Cerevare’s. He’d rolled up the sleeves of his one-piece red shipsuit and opened the front, revealing a clean white t-shirt underneath. He was obviously quite at ease with Cerevare now.

  “Ekzakte. It has never even been determined how they moved around in Nearspace much of the time. Sometimes they utilized the wormholes we ourselves use, but at other times their appearance in a particular part of a system would seem to be inexplicable. And they’d disappear as quickly and mysteriously.”

  I crossed to the table with my double caff and sat down, peeking into the cookie container. Empty, as I’d suspected. “I thought it was fairly widely accepted that they had some limited ability to time-travel.”

  Cerevare grimaced. Her ear twitched, and her golden hoops tinkled. “Timeslipping, people called it. But in my considered opinion, that ability is still in the realm of myth or legend. The Chron did seem to appear and disappear in inexplicable ways—the logs and other historical data show this. However, the mechanism for it was never understood. Even though a few—a very few—Chron ships, and debris from Chron ships, were recovered for study, no mechanism could ever be identified to substantiate this theory.”

  “So, no way to get the technology for ourselves, if it did exist,” Viss said. “I’d love to get my hands on some of that tech, even if I couldn’t reverse-engineer it.”

  “And was it true that they took no prisoners, never interrogated any humans or Lobors or Vilisians?” Hirin wanted to know.

  Cerevare inclined her head. “As far as the records show, that is correct. They appeared in Nearspace, began attacking planets, colonies, ships in transit, space stations, and never attempted any communication. They were ruthless and would not allow themselves to be captured alive. It was usual for them to take steps to ensure that even their corpses would not be retrieved by their enemies.” Cerevare’s black nose wrinkled delicately in distaste. The Lobors had intricate funeral rituals and a strong belief in their importance. I could see why they’d be horrified at the Chron’s apparent disregard for such things.

  “But we did. Retrieve some bodies for study, I mean,” Viss said.

  “Oh yes, indeed we did. Three, to be exact. They were examined in detail.” Cerevare steepled her fingers in front of her. The Lobors had five-fingered hands with opposable thumbs, the skin on the backs covered with fine fur and the palms and fingertips studded with rough pads. They used them the same way humans did, to aid in expression.

  “The Chron—and of course that is only our name for them; we have little knowledge about their own language or what name they might have given themselves—they are another species, like humans, Vilisians, and Lobors, with bipedal symmetry and a similar arrangement of body parts. Head, torso, two arms, two legs. A tough, plated or scaled skin—all three had a pale colouration—with no body hair, and protruding bone flares at the back of the head that showed individuation. In the bodies we studied, two distinct genders were noted, and we inferred sexual reproduction. Their DNA is three-stranded and their chromosomal chemistry perhaps as different as that of any of the other three races we know. In other words, they were no more dissimilar than humans and Lobors.” She flashed a brief smile at us.

  “There was some evidence that the use of bioengineered genes and genetic enhancements might be widespread throughout the population, although since our research specimens were limited it could have been a phenomenon only among members of the military. The most we know of any written language are the basic symbols marking the controls in their ships. It seems unlikely that any species could attain spacefaring capabilities without a well-developed written language, so this seems to be further evidence of their almost pathological need for secrecy.”

  “Were their ships the only examples of their technology we ever saw?” I asked.

  Cerevare nodded. “They carried no personal artifacts, or nothing we could identify as such. The ships were always small, one- or two-person craft, not intended to offer amenities on long journeys. For this reason we always felt certain that the larger Chron base ships—or a way back to them—couldn’t be far away. But we were never able to actually track them to one.”

  Hirin pushed his chair away from the table and rose, crossing to the counter to pull a refill of steaming chai from the dispenser. “So, what do you think you’ll be able to do at this moon artifact?”

  “That, I do not know, yet,” the Lobor answered. “I am carrying a large amount of data with me, although I doubt it is more than the Protectorate would have.” She leaned back in her chair, stifling a yawn with a softly-furred hand; an incongruous pairing with such a human gesture. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what the Protectorate expects from me. I suspect they are calling in anyone they can find who might be considered an ‘expert’ in any area of Chron knowledge.”

  “Grasping at straws?” asked Viss with a grin.

  Cerevare smiled. “Something like that. But however much or little help I am ultimately able to offer, I am excited to see a ‘new’ Chron item after all this time.”

  “I wonder why they think it’s Chron?” I mused. “With so little hard physical data for reference.”

  “It would not take much for them to make that assumption,” Cerevare said. “If similar alloys were used in its construction, or even a repetition of the few symbols we recognize as Chron from their ships, it would be enough. They are distinctive.” She stood and stretched. “And on that note, I shall make my way to bed. Thank you all, for a most interesting discussion.”

  With a final smile for the three of us, she left the galley, the full yellow trousers she wore tonight swaying gently in time with her slightly bouncing gait.

  Hirin contemplated the remains of his chai. “I wonder what this discovery will mean for Nearspace?”

  “It’ll change things,” Viss said. “As long as it doesn’t attract any unwanted interest.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “I keep thinking about all the ways something like that could be configured to send out a signal if it were discovered, if someone started messing with it. Sure, the Chron haven’t been around Nearspace in a hundred and fifty years—that doesn’t mean they’ve disappeared from the entire universe.”

  “The Protectorate will be careful,” I said, but it sounded hollow, even to me. I wished I’d asked Lanar more about it when I’d had him on the comm.

  “By all accounts the Chron were some mean bastardos,” Viss said. “I hope being careful will be enough.”

  We all went off to our quart
ers then, but the jarring note of the end of the conversation replayed in my mind. Despite the comforting presence of Hirin’s even breathing at my side in our quarters, hours passed before sleep deigned to visit me.

  Chapter 7 – Jahelia

  Cat and Mouse

  THE EIGHT YEARS since my father died on Quma have been busy for me. I spent two trying to track down his old PrimeCorp colleague, Emmage Mahane, whose name I’d finally found in my father’s datapad. His notes on her were extensive, enough to make me think he’d been a bit unhealthily obsessed with her all these years, although he’d never mentioned her in my hearing. PrimeCorp wanted her, and wanted her badly, since she’d absconded with every speck of data on the nanobioscavenger project when she objected to the ethics of PrimeCorp’s marketing plans.

  Except the data that lived on in my parents and me. Fortunately, Dad had covered his tracks or played dumb well enough that PrimeCorp wasn’t suspicious enough to test us. I guess we had to thank Emmage Mahane for taking the heat on that one.

  Why did I think I could succeed where PrimeCorp, with all its resources, had failed? Because every big corporation in Nearspace suffers from a bad case of bureaucracy, and it seemed to me that one person, in a case like this, would simply be more efficient.

  “I can’t figure out where they’re headed now,” Pita fretted, bringing me back to the present. “I mean, there’s nothing out here!”

  “Maybe they’ve got Paixon’s mother stashed on an asteroid somewhere,” I said.

  “You know as well as I do that she’s got to be on Kiando again. Otherwise why would the Tane Ikai even have gone there?”

  I shrugged. “Because the Protectorate told them to? Paixon dances to her brother’s tune.”

  “I’ve done the math, Jahelia. There’s a ninety-six point oh four percent—”

  “Oh, shut up, Pita. I don’t really doubt that Emmage Mahane is back on Kiando with Gusain Buig.”

  “Then why are we out here following her daughter’s ship? I thought the point was to get to Mahane through her.”

  “Because I’m working for PrimeCorp, and that’s what they want me to do.”

  “I thought you were only using PrimeCorp as a means to an end. The end being—”

  “Will you shut up?” I stood from the pilot’s seat and stalked to the little galley, although it wasn’t really far enough for stalking. And there was nowhere on the ship I could go to actually get away from the annoying AI.

  I took deep breaths as I pulled a cazitta from the machine. I wished I hadn’t been quite so open, talking to Pita, before I’d realized that she’d remember everything I said and bring it up in later conversations. “Look, PrimeCorp is paying me pretty well to keep tabs on Paixon and her little gang. It’s a good gig, so I’m playing it as long as it’s worthwhile.”

  “Hey, hey, all right,” Pita huffed. I could imagine her, if she were a person, throwing her hands up in exasperation. The PrimeCorp programmers were good. “I just like to know the program. I’m the one flying the ship, right?”

  “Yeah, right, that’s you,” I agreed sarcastically, rolling my eyes. She couldn’t fly the ship without me giving her instructions. Unfortunately, since Pita was based on my personality, she was proficient at recognizing my sarcasm.

  “Pfft,” was all she said.

  I ignored her and sipped at the cazitta, savouring the licorice bite. I wasn’t about to tell her that now, suddenly, when I finally knew where to find Emmage Mahane, I didn’t know what to do with that information.

  After two years of searching, I hadn’t been able to find Emmage Mahane on my own, and it galled me to admit it.

  Discouraged, I had decided to let it go. I took passage to Vileyra, a planet where my parents and I had never lived, and tried to get on with my life. But I couldn’t get Emmage Mahane and what she’d done to us—inadvertently or not—out of my head. I found myself drifting from planet to planet again, telling myself I was simply travelling for fun or to find a better job or a more welcoming climate—but I was fooling myself. I was really searching for her. When I found myself applying for a job as part of the cleaning crew on a starliner, thinking I might come across her that way, I knew I had a problem. And I had to do something concrete about it if I was ever going to shake it.

  My biggest obstacle was lack of funds—I didn’t have my own ship and no resources to get one. But then I got smart. If I couldn’t beat PrimeCorp, maybe I’d let them help me, without even knowing they were doing it. I got close to one of the lowly clerks at PrimeCorp main, and worked my way up until I landed myself an audience with Alin Sedmamin himself.

  That had been an interesting meeting. He perked right up when I introduced myself as the “great-granddaughter” of Berrto Sord himself, who had worked at PrimeCorp so long ago. I spun him a good story about how my great-granddaddy had died ever so many years past, and I’d only recently found out the family history of how Emmage Mahane had done him wrong. I didn’t tell Sedmamin why I wanted to find Mahane, just left it up to his imagination. I’ll give the man one thing, he has a good imagination. Told him I had some impressive credentials and would be willing to pool resources. Of course he said he couldn’t see Mahane hurt, because she had information he wanted. Of course I said I wasn’t planning on hurting her—or at least not until he had what he wanted.

  An interesting meeting, indeed.

  I’m sure he ran a background check on me and my father. But by then the records showed only what I wanted them to show. No mention of how we’d lived on Renata and dad taught at the university there. No mention of the years on Vele under other names. No record of my mother entering the health care system, because of the bioscavs that shouldn’t have been in her blood. No mention of how expensive black market health care is, my father’s gambling, or his involvement in the Longate scandal. None of that.

  Instead, he’d found a rather predictable and boring family tree of predictable and boring people, leading to me. Completely fictitious, but useful. Very, very useful.

  “Jahelia, are you listening to me? I said, what do you think they’re doing?” Pita said again in an aggrieved tone.

  I snapped out of the memories and returned to the pilot’s skimchair, balancing the mug on the console. “I don’t know! Why don’t you have another go at decrypting that datapacket you intercepted, if you’re so curious? Maybe there’s a clue in there.”

  “It’s a Protectorate classified packet,” Pita said with exaggerated patience. “They make them so that unless you have the key, you can’t decrypt it, you know? Stripping a copy from the original is the easy part.”

  “Well, you’re the one who’s so fired up to get some answers. We’ll find out. Be patient.”

  “Hmmm,” Pita said. “They’ve initiated a long-range scan.”

  “Out here?” I sat forward in the chair. “What are they after out here?

  Pita laughed, one of the personality enhancements I found particularly annoying. “We’ll find out. Be patient,” she mimicked.

  We’d followed the Tane Ikai, always skirting the edge of scanner range, while they made a stopover at Mars, then skipped to Lambda Saggitae and made an even briefer stop on Anar. Then they backtracked to Sol system, skipped through MI 2 Eridani and Beta Comae Berenices, and wound up in Delta Pavonis without making any other stops along the way. It was a weird, roundabout route and I couldn’t figure out what their end destination might be, but they weren’t stopping to pick up or deliver cargo. That meant they were headed somewhere with a purpose beyond the normal hauling jobs—maybe an important passenger. I figured their roundabout route was an attempt to confuse or lose anyone like us, who might be following them. Now their route suggested that they weren’t in Delta Pavonis to go to either Rhea or Renata, the two inhabited planets. At first I thought they might be heading for the Split, since I’d seen them travel that anomalous and dangerous wormhole twice lately, but they turned away from its coordinates as well.

  I tapped my fingernails on the console. We
weren’t close enough to get a visual signal, so the Tane Ikai was nothing more than a tiny, hologrammatic dot on my fancy new display. “Yeah, this just got more interesting. What are you doing, Luta Paixon?”

  “Should I pull back? They could catch us in a long-range scan.”

  “Sure—no, wait.” I stared at the glowing dot and considered. “Hang here a little longer and see if they spot us. If they do, I’m not averse to a little cat-and-mouse. It’s been getting a little boring.”

  Pita chuckled. “Who’s the cat, and who’s the mouse?”

  I smiled. “Meow.”

  Chapter 8 ­– Luta

  Take a Deep Breath and Jump

  WE’D MADE AN uneventful skip into the Delta Pavonis system, and Yuskeya laid in the coordinates for the new wormhole. Lanar had sent them as a classified datapacket, so the Protectorate must have been able to keep its whereabouts a secret so far. Our instructions were to start long-range scans early and not get too near the wormhole unless we were certain there were no other ships in the vicinity. It wasn’t likely we’d been followed, but the Protectorate didn’t like to take chances.

  Their paranoia turned out to be a good thing. The scans showed a ship outside the range of our short-range scans, but close enough to monitor us if it wanted to.

  “Can you get a drive signature?” I asked.

  Yuskeya shook her head. “Still too far out.”

  I sighed. “Well, we’re not supposed to get too close to the new wormhole if there’s anyone around, so let’s pretend we’re passing through. Keep heading past the wormhole and checking on that ship, and once they’re out of range we’ll double back.”

  “What a waste of time,” Baden grumbled. “They’re probably not paying any attention to us, anyway.”

  I patted his shoulder. “I know, but we’re on a Protectorate mission, so we’ll play by Protectorate rules. I’m not willing to screw it up by being impatient. We’ve got lots of time to get Cerevare there. Let’s be cautious for once.”