by Wil McCarthy
“So that's it then,” Asia said, bitterly. She had been crying earlier, but her eyes were dry now, and her voice fairly steady. “Eighty years, over like that.”
“I guess so,” Jafre said. “Such ruts we get into, it's nice to break out. But you make it sound so small, so petty. Can't you be happy for me?”
“Not likely.” Her tone fierce, indignant.
And from the other direction:
“...really won't see anything in the raw centrokrist that resembles an ordinary atom, but Tomus and I have worked out most of the subatomic structure, and it seems likely that, given time, we can duplicate it in—”
And:
“...with the collision in the Aurelo we should be finding new veins for the next hundred years. Screw the tin and niobium and all that other crap, we can re-outfit for some real prospecting again. You know, helping science and making a little money at the same—”
And:
“Such busy little children we've managed to produce. It makes me proud, let me tell you—”
A sort of collision took place, a dozen bodies attempting to occupy a space not big enough for half that many. Everyone stopped.
And then, suddenly, in one of those rare gestaltic moments, everyone in the small crowd looked up and recognized someone else they knew.
“Tomus!”
“Captain.”
“Tech Officer. Tech Chief.”
“Jack-Jack!”
“Oh, darkness. Don't tell me he's coming—”
“Children, look at you all!”
Everyone paused again, and then Jack-Jack seized the initiative and, with his eyes on Jafre Shem, began speaking in an elevated voice: “My boy, I'm not here to board the ship, but rather to bid farewell to these children of Earth, who stood by us so bravely in our moment of peril.” He whirled on Tomus Kreider and Miguel Barta, trapped them with a gaze and a grin. “And what wonders have they found? What final news have they got for us? Come on, don't be stingy.”
“Uh,” Miguel said, looking around him, surveying the faces, marking those known and un-. He did not recall ever having met this man, this “Jack-Jack,” but he sensed an importance about him that compelled an answer.
“Well, sir, we may have cracked some of the final secrets of centrokrist's internal structure. Reproducing it, even in small quantities, seems far beyond us right now, but... Well, according to my calculations, the next emergence will take place in 784 standard years. By then, quite possibly, we can return to Malhela in centrokrist ships of our own. Shielded from inertia, shielded from gravity... I wonder if they could ignore us so readily.”
“We'll use it better than they have, I daresay,” Tomus Kreider broke in. “Centrokrist strikes me as a technology of exploration, meant for looking outward, not in. Truly, I wish Yezu had lived to see this day.”
Beside him, Lin Chelsea spoke up, in a peculiar tone that did not sound like her at all. “Their armor have we stolen, their secrets do we keep. Corrupt as ancient gods in frozen amber do they sleep, unaware that their age has already passed.”
“How lovely!” Jack-Jack exclaimed. “How very charming a quote. Where did you find that?”
“I made it up,” the captain said, sounding embarrassed. “I don't usually... Well I couldn't sleep last night, and it just sort of...”
“A poetess, then.” Jack-Jack winked at Miguel, and at Beth. “I'll bet you never suspected such talents of your captain. Guard her well.”
“Old man,” said Jafre Shem, his tone at once spiteful and amused, “Why don't you go find someplace to sit down, and leave the rest of us alone? You'll be dust and gone before the eggies come out of their hole again.”
“And so I will,” Jack-Jack agreed, turning and beaming down at Jafre, several paces below him on the ramp. “The old will always dry up and blow away, and the young will always inherit. But wisely, my boy, if they've taken note of their elders' mistakes. And now, I think I will sit down. The excitement, you know. It wears an old man out. Good day to you all.”
Jack-Jack squirmed through the crowd, past Jafre Shem to the bottom of the ramp, and strode off down the corridor. To the watching eyes behind, he did not appear particularly tired.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Unmooring and pulling away from Port Chrysanthemum, Introspectia soon found itself surrounded by smaller ships, a Malhelan color guard of miners and prospectors and cargo ferries, along with smaller vehicles—landers and repair boats and such.
Tom and Beth and Miguel stood together by one of the viewports in the observation lounge, watching some of the little ships roll and tumble in salute, watching others stand by with greater dignity, like soldiers at attention.
“How beautiful they seem,” Tom said quietly, and Miguel did not know if he meant the ships, or the Malhelan people within them.
“Yes,” he said, and beside him Beth grunted her agreement as well.
The floor began to hum beneath their feet. Port Chrysanthemum appeared to move outside the viewport, and it moved more and more quickly, and within seconds it had vanished from sight. Farther back, the dark, red-brown ball of Unua had begun to drop back as well.
The Malhelan ships kept up, at first. But Introspectia was gaining speed, still, and would continue that way for days, until it had reached the very edge of lightspeed. The color guard eroded slowly, its member ships dropping away one by one, but following bravely while they could.
(THE END)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Engineer/Novelist/Journalist/Entrepreneur Wil McCarthy is a former contributing editor for WIRED magazine and science columnist for the SyFy channel (previously SciFi channel), where his popular "Lab Notes" column ran from 1999 through 2009. A lifetime member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, he has been nominated for the Nebula, Locus, Seiun, AnLab, Colorado Book, Theodore Sturgeon and Philip K. Dick awards, and contributed to projects that won a Webbie, an Eppie, a Game Developers' Choice Award, and a General Excellence National Magazine Award. In addition, his imaginary world of "P2", from the novel LOST IN TRANSMISSION, was rated one of the 10 best science fiction planets of all time by Discover magazine. His short fiction has graced the pages of magazines like Analog, Asimov's, WIRED, and SF Age, and his novels include the New York Times Notable BLOOM, Amazon.com "Best of Y2K" THE COLLAPSIUM (a national bestseller) and, most recently, TO CRUSH THE MOON. He has also written for TV, appeared on The History Channel and The Science Channel, and published nonfiction in half a dozen magazines, including WIRED, Discover, GQ, Popular Mechanics, IEEE Spectrum, and the Journal of Applied Polymer Science. Previously a flight controller for Lockheed Martin Space Launch Systems and later an engineering manager for Omnitech Robotics, McCarthy is now the president and Chief Technology Officer of RavenBrick LLC in Denver, CO, a developer of smart window technologies. He lives in Colorado with his family.
Find more books by Wil McCarthy at http://ReAnimus.com/authors/wilmccarthy
