Firebird

EIGHT

I am not truly lost so long as someone, somewhere, can hear my voice.

— Vicki Greene, Love You to Death, 1423

I guess people will always see things in the night sky. There've been countless reports over the millennia of various kinds of sightings, of mysterious lights and unidentified objects and phantom vehicles. The vast majority do not stand up to close inspection. Some are simply ships that have arrived at the wrong place, for one reason or another, and are reluctant to go on the record, so they clear out without identifying themselves. Others are space rocks that catch momentary sunlight. Still others are incompetent smugglers. In one famous instance, the object was a firefly that had gotten onto a station and been caught in a sliding port.

But sometimes no ready explanation presents itself. The two events witnessed by Chris Robin, one at Sanusar, the other at Rimway, seem to fall into that category. Neither had ever been explained.

The vehicle at Sanusar in 1380 had approached within about fifty kilometers of the station. The scanners got visuals, but the visitor was never identified. Nothing that matched the design was known to exist among the commercial and naval fleets of the Confederacy or of the Ashiyyur.

By the mideleventh millennium, no space station had been in place longer than the one at Sanusar. At the time of the sighting, it had been in orbit more than three thousand years. Brandine Kovalar himself is said to have christened it. It had welcomed almost every major figure in the Confederacy at one time or another. It was where Myra Dawkin had stayed on her historic visit. It had provided the platform on which George Delios delivered his celebrated “Here I stand” address. Kyla Bonner had written some of her Twilight Sonnets in Korby's, a cafe in the main concourse. And Kip Berry had died somewhere in the Majestic Hotel-nobody was sure where-after taking the station back from the Debunkers. And, of course, at the beginning of the twelfth millennium, the station would fall briefly into the hands of the Mutes.

But over that vast span of time, there was probably no event more intriguing than the one that occurred at the end of the evening watch on Constitution Day, fifty-four years ago.

I downloaded the record and watched:

Tereza Urbanova was on duty, surveying an empty sky, when Jay Benson, the operational control AI-the only AI I'd ever heard of with a last name-informed her that an unscheduled vehicle had just been detected on the scopes.

“Where, Jay?” she asked.

“Range eight thousand kilometers. Approaching.”

“What? And we're just now seeing them? How'd they get this close?” Her display showed only a blip.

“I don't know, Tereza. I've started a systems check. No indication of a malfunction.”

“They're coming out of a jump.” She made no effort to hide her irritation. “They just jumped the hell in. Right on top of us.”

“I'll start the report.”

“I've been out here more than thirty years, Jay. Never seen it before. Never saw anything like it.” She leaned over the board and opened a channel. “This is Operations at Sanusar. Ship that has just entered system, please identify yourself.”

No response.

She centered the ship on her display. “Mack, this is Ops. Hold the launch. Unknown vehicle in the area.”

“Will do, Tereza. Holding.”

It wasn't all that dangerous. But there's a courtesy thing. You just don't do that.

“Trajectory will take him past the station. But it will be close,” she said.

“It might be a vehicle malfunction,” said Jay.

“For his sake, I hope so. Can you give me a better look at it?”

“One second.”

While Tereza waited, she opened a channel to someone. Probably the chief of the watch. “Marcos-”

“I see it, Tereza. Just follow protocol. I'll be down in a minute.”

“Still closing,” said Jay.

She switched over to her Patrol link. “Caleb.”

“Hold on, Ops. We see him.”

“Two minutes to closest approach,” said Jay. “Holding steady.”

“It's just passing through.”

Another voice, a steady-as-she-goes baritone: “Yes, Tereza. What have you got on him?”

“Don't know who he is. You want to take a look?”

“What's the situation?”

“It just transited in. We've got one flight going out, but we're holding.”

“Okay,” he said. “No incoming?”

“Negative.”

“Good. I see them. We'll get after them.”

“They're still not responding,” said Jay. “Moving at nineteen thousand.”

Tereza leaned over her mike: “Incoming Vehicle,” she said, “this is Sanusar Ops. Please identify yourself. You are in violation of procedure.”

The intruder had a vaguely ponderous shape. Exhaust tubes and scanner housings and maneuvering thrusters and everything else were all buried within the hull. Navigation lights blinked on and off. The ship looked vaguely throwback. “How big is it, Jay?”

“Two hundred twenty meters.”

She could make out more lights now. On the bridge. And there was a line of illuminated windows.

“Who the hell are you?” She propped her chin on her hand and stared at the display. Both of Sanusar's moons were visible. “Jay, there's a hull designator of some sort. Can you make it out?”

“Let me try to get more definition.”

“Ops.” A new voice. Female. “Patrol ready to launch. Request permission.”

She checked her screens. “You are clear.”

“Got a bad angle on the hull. I can see two characters, but they're not anything I recognize.”

Someone appeared in the doorway behind her. Probably Marcos, her supervisor. “Maybe it's the Mutes,” he said.

“Don't know. I hope not.”

Despite the baritone, Marcos was thin, smaller than she was, and he looked as if he'd be more at home in an academic setting. “Have you been able to get any response from these people at all? “ he asked.

“Not a word.”

“Okay.” He opened the channel to the Patrol. “Who's got the conn?”

“Sandy.”

He nodded. “Sandy. Try to get a better look at him if you can.”

“Will do, Marcos.”

Marcos leaned over Tereza and spoke into the mike: “Unidentified Vehicle, slow down. Who are you? What's the problem?”

Nothing but static.

He grumbled something. Kept his eyes on the display. “Where the hell is it going?”

“Marcos.” Sandy's voice. “Something strange is happening.”

“What?” Marcos frowned and tried to enhance the image.

“I can see through it.”

“Say again, Sandy.”

“I can see through it. The damned thing's fading. It's disappearing.”

It was true. The hull had become transparent.

“Not possible,” said Marcos. The calm authority was gone from his voice. It had been replaced by a note of uncertainty.

The intruder's navigation lights dimmed. We saw more stars. And then it was as if it had never been there.

“Ops,” said Sandy. “Did you see that?”

I'd watched a good many ships make their jumps, on-screen and riding beside them. When they did, they vanished. Blinked off. One moment they were there, and the next they were gone. This wasn't like that at all.

“Spooky,” Tereza said, keeping her voice low. “What the hell was it?”

I called Alex. He was in his quarters, sitting in an armchair, framed by a window. It was still darker in Andiquar. A notebook lay open on his lap. “How's it going, Chase?” he asked. “You figure out what happened to him?”

“No. I don't have a clue. I do have one interesting piece of information, though.”

“What's that?”

“Robin bought several yachts, according to the local priest. I checked the archives. It's true. He bought four over an eight-year period.”

“Four yachts? What was he doing with them?”

“Apparently, he was using them in an experiment. I did some research and found something on it. Not much. And it's really not clear. Something about cycling.''

“What's that?”

“It's connected with providing reserves for an electronic boost when you make a jump.”

Alex's brow crinkled. “Make sense to you?”

“I know it happens. Beyond that-”

“I take it the yachts were not new?”

“No. They were all pretty old. Which, by the way, isn't consistent with cycling experiments, so I don't know what was actually going on.”

“Okay.” He lifted a glass of something from a side table and drained it. “When did all this happen?”

“Between 1385 and 1393.”

“Did you get the names of the yachts?”

“One of them was the Starhawk.”

“All right.”

“Another was the Firehawk.”

“The Firehawk? This guy had a thing with hawks?”

“Sorry. The Firebird.”

“And the others?”

“Striker and Elizabeth.”

“How long did they usually have these yachts before they lost them?”

“I don't know, Alex. I couldn't find any detailed information. Why are we so interested?”

“I'm not sure. I don't know. But the yachts went away. Then Robin went away.”

“All right. Ramsay will be calling in a little bit. If you have no problem with it, I'm going to tell him about them. About the yachts.”

“Yes. By all means. It sounds mysterious, and that's exactly what we're looking for. When you tell him, sound surprised, okay?” Lightning lit up the window, but I couldn't be sure whether it was his or mine. Until the thunder rumbled overhead. “Chase,” he said, “you're a genius.”

“How's everything going at your end?”

“We're still rolling. The artifacts may have peaked. But maybe not. I've arranged some informal presentations for Plunkett.”

“Plunkett?” I knew the name from somewhere.

“Charlie Plunkett. The guy from the Robin Society. Brane theory.”

“Oh. As in colliding universes?”

“Yes.”

Libraries, museums, and other social groups were always looking for guest speakers. “Alex,” I said, “the guy might be a bit far out.”

“It doesn't matter. He's good behind a lectern. And nothing he can say will hurt the artifacts. That's all that matters.” He was about to sign off, but apparently remembered something. “Hang on a second, Chase.” He took another sip of his drink. Then: “One other thing-”

“Yes?”

“These sightings have been going on for a long time. I don't just mean lights in the sky, but close-ups of ships that don't seem to belong. And there've been strange voices. The sightings are infrequent, maybe two or three times a century, but they keep happening.”

“How far back?”

“Into ancient history.”

“Okay.” I waited, thinking more was coming.

But he subsided. Then: “We're onto something very big, Chase.”

“Ships from another reality?”

“Maybe.”

“Now, that would really be a jolt. Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention. It's probably of no significance. Robin was out somewhere in the Breakwater two or three weeks before that last flight.”

“Do you know where?”

“No. My source didn't know. Also, you wanted to know how long he'd been away on that last flight. It was three days, possibly four.”

Jack McDevitt

Firebird