by E. M. Foner
“I didn’t do anything,” the young man protested, as power returned to the cabin lighting. “That must have been an automatic defense system. If I understand the yellow indicator up there, deflecting that attack took about a quarter of our power reserves.”
“Can we outrun them?” asked the boy, who looked to be around fourteen.
“I don’t think so, Nigel,” Kevin said. “The Verlocks built for safety and economy. I don’t think they ever cared much about speed.”
“We won’t be very safe if the pirates catch us again,” the woman pointed out unnecessarily. “Especially after we blew up the stasis field generator and stole this ship out of their trophy yard.”
“I’m sorry I got you and Nigel into this, Molly,” Kevin said, looking away from the control hologram for a moment. “It was a stupid plan.”
“It was a good plan,” the boy insisted, keeping his eyes on the main view screen. “If the other hostages had taken ships and fled, the pirates couldn’t have pursued us all.”
“It’s not the fault of the aliens,” Molly said. “We couldn’t risk telling them the plan in advance since they might have spilled the beans to our captors. Most of them are waiting to be ransomed by their families or employers.”
“Two more ships are coming for us,” Nigel reported, pointing at dots on the screen. “How do I control the view?”
“It’s all gesture based,” Kevin explained. “Just move your hands in front of the screen and try to think like a Verlock. They’re very deliberate, so move slowly.”
The boy began to motion with his arms, like an orchestra conductor submerged in a viscous liquid, and the view on the screen cycled through several variations. Eventually, a number of icons appeared along the bottom of the display. Nigel reached for one that looked like a ball with a tiny representation of the Verlock ship in the middle, closed his fist as if he were grabbing it, and pulled back his arm. A spherical hologram showing the space all around them sprang to life in front of the main view screen.
“That has to be us in the middle, and those three following us are pirates, but what are all of these other dots?” Nigel asked.
“I’m afraid they’re more pirates,” his mother replied. She started to reach towards the hologram, but a grimace of pain distorted her features, and she barely avoided crying out. “Try to zoom in. Do you see them, Kevin?”
The young man looked up from the holographic controller again, and his expression grew even grimmer. “I’ll aim for the largest gap, between those four,” he said, pointing at the encircling ships. “It’s probably a trap, but it beats flying straight at one of them when I can’t find any controls for offensive weaponry. They must have called in allied pirate crews to surround us so quickly.”
The cabin lights and the hologram dimmed again, and this time the ship lurched slightly.
“We’re down to fifty percent,” Kevin reported. “I’m sorry, but I don’t see a way out.”
“I don’t want to be a slave,” the boy said. “I’d rather die fighting.”
“Oh, Nigel.” Molly regarded her son with a mixture of sadness and pride, but she knew there was nothing they could hope to accomplish against pirates in armored spacesuits.
“Hold on, this could be something,” Kevin said. The controller hologram was displaying an interior view of the cabin in miniature. Situated between the acceleration chair occupied by the young man and the one shared by Nigel and his mother was a bright blue column that was pulsing with energy. “Is it a hologram of a hologram?” he asked himself out loud, making an upward gesture with his left hand. As near as he could tell, Verlocks read from bottom to top, so the previous image would be found below the current one.
“Is that a handle in the deck?” Nigel asked, leaning over to look down at the space between the two overlarge acceleration couches, which were intended for much bulkier aliens.
Kevin leaned over from his own side, the four-point restraint that couldn’t pull tight to human size allowing him plenty of latitude for moving around. “Yeah. The way they show it in what I think is the instructions, I have to rotate the handle a quarter turn and then the thing will rise out of the deck.” He put his words into action, wrapping his fingers around the recessed bar at the center of what looked like a circular plate, and twisting.
A glowing blue column rose up into the cabin, pulsing with light and sound. Kevin could feel the song of power throbbing in his bones, but there were no controls visible on the cylinder, and it didn’t respond to hand motions.
“What is it?” Molly asked.
“It might be the thing referenced by all of the schematics I flipped through, but whether that makes it the power source or some kind of failsafe device, I don’t know.”
The cabin lights went out for a third time, indicating that the pirates had fired their weapons again, but the blue column seemed to be undisturbed by the energy drain.
“Maybe it’s a weapon,” Nigel ventured hopefully. “It looks really powerful.”
“A weapon inside the cabin?” Kevin turned back to the controller and slid the hologram up and down, looking for a graphical explanation of how to activate the device and what it did. “None of this makes any sense. I think that those red squares are Verlock warning signs, but why would they show instructions at all if the thing is dangerous?”
“Maybe it’s a self-destruct device,” the boy said, sounding almost hopeful. “I saw a Vergallian immersive once where a crippled ship’s crew took their attackers with them by exploding like a star.”
“You’re too young to give up,” Molly told him, struggling to keep a pleading tone out of her voice. “Even if we didn’t get away from the pirates this time, there will be other chances for you.”
“I don’t think it’s a self-destruct,” Kevin said. “The holograms remind me of the life boat instructions for the trader I was piloting when the pirates caught me. I think it’s some kind of escape mechanism.”
“Could it be a one-shot jump drive?” Molly asked. “I saw a Grenouthian documentary about faster-than-light technology a few years ago and I remember that some of the advanced species developed unique ways to fold space before they joined the Stryx tunnel network.”
“Maybe it does something like that, I don’t know. But I can’t see how to choose a destination, much less activate it,” Kevin replied.
“Who cares about where it takes us!” the boy almost shouted, pointing at the rapidly closing ships depicted in the spherical hologram. “One more shot and our defensive screens will be down. They’ll match our speed, catch us with magnetic grapples, and board in armored space suits. It’s how they seized our survey ship.”
Kevin scrolled rapidly through holograms, looking for anything that might indicate how the cylindrical device was activated. Finally, he spotted a red box around a blue circle on the arm of an acceleration chair. He looked down and saw that a small cavity had opened just beyond where his hand would rest had he been a little larger and sitting normally. He squirmed out of half of the safety restraints and leaned forward.
“There are three buttons in the arm of my chair that might activate the device,” he reported. “I didn’t notice them before. The access panel must have opened when the thing rose out of the deck.”
“There’s one on our chair too!” Nigel confirmed. “I can barely reach all three buttons at the same time. The Verlocks must have big hands.”
“Did you just press them?” his mother asked sharply.
“Nothing happened,” the boy replied in disappointment.
The lights and the holograms winked out again, and this time they didn’t come back on. If not for the pulsing column of blue light, the fugitives would have been sitting in the dark.
“That’s it, then. We’re defenseless,” Kevin said. “They can fire again or come and gather us in at their leisure.”
“Try your buttons,” the boy urged him. “I don’t care if it is a self-destruct.”
The young man glanced over at the boy’
s mother, who gave him a sad nod, and he depressed all three of the buttons, using his pinky and ring finger together on the third one.
Nothing happened.
“I hate this!” Nigel exclaimed. “We can’t fight, we can’t run, we can’t even see what’s going on.”
“Maybe you need to push the buttons together,” Molly said slowly.
“I did,” Kevin replied.
“Me too,” her son added.
“I mean the two of you at the same time,” the woman said. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s a two-Verlock ship, and they’d want to agree before bailing out or blowing themselves up.”
There was a clank on the hull as a magnetic grappler made contact. Kevin looked over at his companions, who were lit by the eerie blue glow, and said, “On three. All right?”
“Do it,” the boy replied stiffly.
“One. Two. Three!”
Kevin and Nigel each pushed in their three buttons, and with a flash of blue light and a mind-bending lurch, the universe turned itself inside out. For a very long time it seemed to Kevin that his mind was floating alone in the cosmos—he tried to speak and couldn’t even hear himself in his own head. He wondered if this was death, but then the main display screen flickered back on and a voice began speaking.
“You have accessed the Verlock Trading Guild’s Emergency Recovery Network, better known as VTGERN.”
The three humans burst out in cheers, missing a sentence of the message because they couldn’t make anything of the alien script that marched up the main screen in synchronization with the audio message translated by their implants.
“…leading to the closure of this network during the reign of Shrynlenth the Two-Thousand and Seventh.” The message stopped scrolling and the audio fell silent.
“What was that?” Molly cried.
“Something about the rescue network being closed,” her son replied. “Can you replay it?” he asked Kevin.
“I didn’t play it to start with. It just came on.”
The main screen flashed again, and a different recorded message began playing back, while Verlock script scrolled up the screen in synch.
“Under the ‘abandoned in place’ clause of the tunnel network agreement for obsolete hyperspace infrastructure, VTGERN is now under the management of a Stryx working group for transitional technologies. If you continue beyond this point, you may be charged for towing and associated rescue fees, and there will be a required payment equal to one hundred percent of the assessed value of your ship which goes to fund this working group. If you do not wish to be rerouted to the Stryx tunnel network connector, simply repeat the initiation sequence for your VTGERN device and you will be returned to your point of departure.”
“What did all that mean?” Nigel asked.
“If we don’t want to pay, we can go back to being captured by pirates,” Kevin said with a laugh. “The Stryx can have two hundred percent of this ship as far as I’m concerned.”
“Mom? Are you all right?”
Kevin looked over and saw that Molly had slumped onto her son’s shoulder, her arm held at an unnatural angle.
“Don’t shake her,” he told Nigel. “She got banged up worse than either of us when we made our escape from that hulk. Her arm looks broken so it’s better that she sleeps if she can. You’ve got a tough woman for a mother.”
“I know that,” Nigel replied, fierce pride showing in his eyes. “When Dad died, she kept right on doing the alien archeological survey work he contracted for, even though the universities offered to let her out of it.”
“Rerouting to the Stryx tunnel connector,” the voice announced.
A hologram appeared displaying a spiral galaxy with a large red dot accompanied by a bit of Verlock script positioned far out on one of the spiral arms. Then a network of white lines crisscrossing the galaxy leapt into existence, much denser in some areas than others. At a hundred or so well-spaced spots, the lines converged to points that looked like solid white balls due to the density of the connections.
“It’s the tunnel network,” Kevin said, unable to keep the awe from his voice. “I’ve never seen a representation like this before. The solid white balls must be the station hubs.”
“We have to get Mom to a doctor.” Nigel’s voice sounded much younger and less certain now that the immediate danger had passed.
A blinking white line came to life connecting the red dot to one of the white balls, and a moment later, Kevin felt the familiar distortion of entering a Stryx tunnel. A weird bass rumble began rising and falling in the background, accompanied by the occasional chime.
“Maybe I better take a look at her arm,” he said, slipping out of the ineffective safety restraints without bothering to undo them. “We could be in the tunnel for days.”
The boy groaned with frustration and studied the hologram, trying to guess what was being depicted.
“Look, we’re a quarter of the way there already!”
Kevin pivoted about and stared at the hologram. The red dot was moving up the blinking white line at an incredible clip.
“This isn’t like any tunnel trip I’ve ever taken. I hope it doesn’t scramble our brains. And I wonder what’s causing all the weird sounds?”
“Maybe it’s Verlock lift tube music,” Nigel speculated. He stared at the moving red dot in rapt concentration, willing it to take them to their destination faster. “Why didn’t we go to the nearest hub?”
“Don’t know,” Kevin replied. “At the speed we’re moving, I guess it doesn’t make much difference. We’re going to be there in just a few…”
The hologram of the Milky Way disappeared, replaced by a field of stars and a giant cylindrical structure which dwarfed the arriving and departing ships to insignificance. Kevin and Nigel both found themselves closing their eyes to try to keep the cabin from spinning, which only made it worse. The ship’s comm crackled to life.
“If you require assistance, do not respond to this hail and we will initiate retrieval in fifty-three seconds. Your bill for accessing the abandoned emergency network may be waived if you turn over your ship and the VTGERN device for decommissioning and can demonstrate income below the tunnel network median. Please eject any banned substances into space at this time for collection by bots. Thank you for choosing Union Station.”
Kevin forced his eyes back open and stared at the hologram of the busy Stryx station in disbelief.
“Do we have any banned substances?” Nigel asked.
“We don’t have anything other than the clothes on our backs. If there are drugs hidden on the ship, they can confiscate them. Whoa!” he added, tumbling back onto the acceleration couch as the ship began accelerating towards the station. “They’ve grabbed us with something. Hang on, Molly. I bet they have a med bot waiting in the hangar.”
Three
“What happened to you?” Woojin addressed his boss. The director of EarthCent Intelligence shuffled into the meeting like a ninety-year-old man in poor health.
“Back,” Clive grimaced. “I would have skipped today, but Blythe couldn’t make it because she’s with Chastity and the midwife waiting on the baby.”
“That’s right, she was almost exactly three weeks ahead of me,” Lynx said, glancing at her own maternity countdown watch. “Did you try to pick her up or something?”
“The puppy,” Clive replied, carefully lowering himself into a chair. He froze more than once during the process, causing the others to wince in sympathy.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” Walter said. “Why would you try to pick up a puppy that’s almost big enough to rent out for pony-back rides? The last time I lifted any of those short-haired eating machines was to give them baths after they rolled around in—never mind.”
“The kids,” Clive explained. “Vivian and Jonah got the puppy to lie on a rug and they were trying to pick him up together. I had a sudden urge to show off.”
“Establishing dominance,” Thomas commented. “I’ve been told that dogs are uncomfor
table in a new home until they figure out who’s in charge.”
“Speaking of who’s in charge, why are we having this meeting?” Lynx asked.
“To discuss the upcoming review of humanity’s status on the tunnel network,” Clive replied. “Kelly relayed a request from the steering committee to support the ambassadors in preparing for special encounters with their alien peers. The review is taking place on every Stryx station where EarthCent has a diplomatic presence.”
“How can we prepare for a Stryx review?” Thomas asked. “I’m sure they have well-defined criteria against which to measure humanity’s progress, just like the test I took to establish my sentience as an artificial person. We aren’t going to change their assessment now because we rush out and help alien grandmothers carry home their groceries.”
Clive began to laugh and then froze again as his back went into a fresh spasm. “New rule. No making the Intelligence Director laugh.”
“You should go see the Farling doctor,” Woojin told him. “Look what he did for us.”
“Yeah, us,” Lynx groused, patting her distended abdomen and inspecting her watch again. “Twenty days, seventeen hours and thirty-two minutes until liftoff.”
“I’ve never been much for doctors,” Clive said, grimacing again. “And in answer to your question, Thomas, what the ambassadors really want is help with the confrontational part of the process, where the alien diplomats might present objections to our becoming full members of the tunnel network.”
“And why did you want me here?” Walter asked.
“I assume the Galactic Free Press will be covering the review process and I was hoping that your sources might be able to shed some light on what we can expect. We haven’t really concentrated any resources on trying to figure out why aliens might dislike us, though now that it comes up, I think that was probably an error on our part.”
“So you expect the Grenouthians to complain that humans are cutting into their news business and the Hortens to complain that we win too many gaming tournaments?”
