Starplex

Chapter XIII

Keith’s mind was reeling. So many discoveries, so much happening. He drummed his fingers on his bridge workstation for a moment, thinking. And then: “Okay, people, what now?”

The front row of workstations all rotated around on their individual pedestals so that they faced the back row: Lianne was facing Jag, Thor was facing Keith, and Rhombus was facing Rissa. Keith looked at each member of his bridge staff in turn. “We’ve got almost an embarrassment of riches here,” he said. “First, there’s the mystery of the stars’ erupting from the shortcuts—stars that Jag thinks come from the future. As if that’s not a big enough puzzle to try to figure out, we’ve also stumbled upon life—life!—made out of dark matter.” Keith looked from face to face. “Given the complexity of the radio signals Hek’s been picking up, there’s a chance—a small one, I grant you—that we’re even looking at first contact with intelligent life. Rissa, it would have been crazy to say this yesterday, but let’s make the dark-matter investigations the province of the life-sciences division.”

She nodded.

Keith turned to Jag. “The stars coming out of the shortcuts, on the other hand, may pose a threat to the Commonwealth. If you’re right, Jag, and they are coming from the future, then we’ve got to find out why they’re coming back. Is it by deliberate design? If so, is it for a malevolent purpose? Or is it just an accident? A globular cluster, say, colliding with a shortcut billions of years from now, and overloading it somehow so that its constituent stars are spewed back to here?”

“Well,” barked Jag, “a globular cluster wouldn’t pass through a shortcut. Only one of its member stars would.”

“Unless,” said Thor, sounding a bit feisty, “that globular cluster was enclosed in a sort of super Dyson sphere—a shell around the entire assembly of stars. Imagine something like that touching a shortcut billions of years from now. The shell could break apart while traversing the gate, and send the component stars scattering out of different exit points.”

“Ridiculous,” said Jag. “You humans always reinforce each other in even your wildest fantasies. Take your religions, for instance—”

“Enough!” snapped Keith, bringing his open palm down loudly on the edge of his workstation. “Enough. We’re not going to get anywhere squabbling.” He looked at the Waldahud. “If you don’t like Thor’s suggestion, then make one of your own. Why are the stars coming back here from the future?”

Jag was facing the director, but only his right eyes were looking at Keith; the left pair was scanning the surroundings, an instinctual precursor to a fight. “I don’t know,” he said at last.

“We need an answer,” said Keith, his voice still edged.

“Interrupting in all politeness,” said Rhombus. “Offense not intended and hopefully not taken.”

Keith turned to face the Ib. “What is it?”

“Perhaps you are asking the wrong person. No slight is intended of good Jag, of course. But if you want to know why the stars are being sent back in time, then the person to ask is the person who is sending them back.”

“You mean ask some person in the future?” Keith said. “How can we possibly do that?”

The Ib’s mantle twinkled. “Now that is a question for good Jag,” he said. “If material from the future can exit the shortcut in the past, can we then send something from the past into the future?”

Jag was quiet for a second, thinking. But then he moved his lower shoulders. “Not as far as I can tell. Every computer simulation I’ve done shows that any object entering the shortcut in the present gets shunted to another present-day shortcut. Assuming the rogue stars are being sent back by conscious design, I don’t know how whoever is controlling the shortcuts is doing it, and I have no idea how to send something forward.”

“Ah, good Jag,” said Rhombus, “forgive me, but there is of course one way to send something forward.”

“And what’s that?” Keith asked.

“A time capsule,” said the Ib. “You know: just make something that will last. Eventually, without our doing anything special, it will end up in the future through the natural passage of time.”

Jag and Keith looked at each other. “But—but Jag says the stars are coming from billions of years in the future,” Keith said.

“In fact,” said the Waldahud, “if I had to guess, I would say they come from something like ten billion years from now.”

Keith nodded, turning back to face Rhombus. “That’s double the current age of any of the Commonwealth homeworlds.”

“True,” said the Ib. “But, forgive me, despite what you Humans think, neither Earth nor the other homeworlds were created by deliberate design. Our time capsule would be.”

“A time capsule that would last ten billion years…” said Jag, clearly intrigued. “Perhaps… perhaps if it were made out of extremely hard material, like… like diamond, but without the cleavage planes. But even if we made such a thing, there is no guarantee that anyone would ever find it. And, besides, this part of the galaxy will rotate around the core forty-odd times before then. How do we possibly keep the object from drifting away from during all that time?”

Lights danced on Rhombus’s sensor web. “Well, assume that this particular shortcut will continue to exist for the next ten billion years; that’s a fair assumption, since it’s here now, and must also still exist at the time the star was pushed through it. So, make our time capsule self-repairing—the nanotech lab should be able to come up with something—and have it hold position near this shortcut.”

“And then just hope that someone will notice it when they come by here in the future to use the shortcut?” asked Keith.

“It may be more than that, good Keith,” said Rhombus. “It may be that they come by here to build the shortcut. The shortcuts may have been created in the future, and had their exit points extruded into the past. If their real purpose is to shunt stars back here, then that’s a likely scenario.”

Keith turned to Jag. “Objections?”

The Waldahud lifted all four shoulders. “None.”

He turned back to Rhombus. “And you think this will work?”

A tiny flash of light on the Ib’s sensor web. “Why not?”

Keith thought about it. “I suppose it’s worth a try. But ten billion years—all of the Commonwealth races might be extinct by then. Hell, they’ll probably be extinct by then.”

Lights moved up Rhombus’s web; a nod of assent. “So we’ll have to contrive our message in symbolic or mathematical language. Ask our good friend Hek to devise something. As a radio astronomer involved with searching for alien intelligence, he’s an expert in designing symbolic communication. To use an expression that both your people and mine share, this project will be right up his alley.”

The bridge was bustling with activity, and there was plenty of work to be done. But Jag and Hek were visibly flagging. Although they didn’t do the theatrical yawns humans were famous for, their nostrils were dilating rhythmically, a physiological response that amounted to the same thing.

Keith thought for a moment that he could pull an allnighter. Hell, he’d done that often enough at university. But university had been a quarter century ago, and he had to admit that he, too, was exhausted.

“Let’s call it a night,” he said, rising from his workstation. The indicators on it went dark as he did so.

Rissa nodded and rose as well. The two of them headed toward one of the bridge’s hologram-shrouded walls. The door opened, exposing the corridor beyond. They headed down toward the elevator station. A car was waiting for them—PHANTOM had routed one there as soon as they had started down the corridor. Keith got in, followed by Rissa. “Deck eleven,” he said, and PHANTOM chirped an acknowledgement. They turned around, just in time to catch sight of Lianne Karendaughter jogging down the corridor toward them. PHANTOM saw her, too, of course, and held the elevator door open until she arrived. Lianne smiled at Keith as she got in, then called out her floor number. Rissa affixed her gaze on the wall monitor that showed the current level’s deck plan.

Keith had been married to Rissa too long not to be sensitive to her body language. She didn’t like Lianne—didn’t like her standing this close to Keith, didn’t like being in a confined space with her.

The elevator began to move. On the monitor, the arms of the floor plan began to contract. Keith breathed deeply—and realized, perhaps for the first time, that he missed the subtle smell of perfume. Another concession to the damn pigs, and their hypersensitive noses. Perfume, cologne, scented aftershave—all were banned aboard Starplex.

Keith could see the reflection of Rissa’s face in the monitor screen, see the tight lines at the corners of her mouth, see the tension, the hurt.

And Keith could also see Lianne. She was shorter than he was, and her lustrous blond hair half shielded her exotic, young face. If they’d been alone, Keith might have chatted with her, told her a joke, smiled, laughed, maybe even touched her arm lightly as he made a comment. She was so—so alive; talking to her was invigorating.

Instead, he said nothing. The deck-number indicator continued to count down. Finally, the car hummed to a stop on the floor containing Lianne’s apartment.

“Good night, Keith,” said Lianne, smiling up at him. “Good night, Rissa.”

“Good night,” replied Keith. Rissa nodded curtly.

Keith was able to watch her walk down the corridor for a few seconds before the door closed behind her. He’d never been to her apartment. He wondered how she had it decorated.

The elevator continued to ascend briefly and then it stopped again. The door opened, and Keith and Rissa walked the short distance to their apartment.

Once they were inside, Rissa spoke—and Keith could hear in her voice that said she was speaking against her better judgment. “You’re quite fond of her, aren’t you?”

Keith weighed all the possible answers. He had too much respect for Rissa’s intelligence to try to get away with saying, “Who?” After a moment’s hesitation, he decided simple honesty was the best policy. “She’s bright, charming, beautiful, and good at her job. What’s not to like?”

“She’s twenty-seven,” said Rissa, as if that were an indictable offense.

Twenty-seven! thought Keith. Well, there it was. A concrete number. But—twenty-seven. Jesus Christ… He took off his shoes and socks, and lay down on the couch, letting his feet air out.

Rissa sat down opposite him. Her face was a study in thought, as if she were deciding whether to pursue the topic further. Evidently she chose not to, and instead changed the subject. “Boxcar came to see me today.”

Keith wriggled his toes. “Oh?”

“She’s quitting.”

“Really? Got a better offer somewhere else?”

Rissa shook her head. “She’s going to discorporate next week. She was assessed a penalty of one sixteenth of her lifespan because she wasted some people’s time almost six hundred years ago.”

Keith was quiet for a few moments. “Oh.”

“You don’t sound surprised,” said Rissa.

“Well, I’ve heard of the procedure. Never quite made sense to me, the way Ibs are so obsessive about wasted time. I mean, they live for centuries.”

“To them, it’s just a normal lifespan. They don’t think of it as inordinately long, of course.” A pause. “You can’t let her go through with it.”

Keith spread his arms. “I don’t know that I have any choice.”

“Dammit, Keith. The execution is to take place here, aboard Starplex. Surely you have jurisdiction.”

“Over ship’s business, sure. Over this, well…” He looked up at the ceiling. “PHANTOM, what powers do I have in this area?”

“Under the Articles of Commonwealth Jurisprudence, you are obliged to recognize all sentences imposed by the individual member governments,” said PHANTOM. “The Ib practice of exacting penalties equal to a portion of the standard lifespan is specifically excluded from the section of the articles that deals with cruel and unusual punishment. Given that, you have no power to interfere.”

Keith spread his arms, and looked at Rissa. “Sorry.”

“But what she did was so minor, so insignificant.”

“You said she fudged some data?”

“That’s right, when she was a student. A stupid thing to do, granted, but—”

“You know how the Ibs feel about wasted time, Rissa. I imagine others relied on her results, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“Look, the Ibs come from a planet that’s perpetually shrouded in cloud. You can’t see the stars or their moons from the surface, and their sun is only a bright smudge behind the clouds. Despite that, by studying tides in those shallow puddles that pass for oceans there, they managed to work out the existence of their moons. They even managed to deduce the existence of other stars and planets, all before any of them had ever traveled above their atmosphere. The things they’ve figured out would have been impossible for humans, I bet. It’s only because they live for such a long time that they were able to puzzle them through; a shorter-lived race on such a world would probably never have realized that there was a universe out there. But to accomplish what they have, they have to be able to trust each other’s observations and results. It all falls apart if someone is monkeying with the data.”

“But no one could possibly still care about what she did after all this time. And—and I need her. She’s an important part of my staff. And she’s my friend.”

Keith spread his arms. “What would you have me do?”

“Talk to her. Tell her she doesn’t have to go through with this.”

Keith scratched his left ear. “All right,” he said, at last. “All right.”

Rissa smiled at him. “Thank you. I’m sure she’ll—”

The intercom chimed. “Colorosso to Lansing,” said a woman’s voice. Franca Coloresso was the delta-shift InOps officer.

Keith tipped his head up. “Open. Keith here. What is it, Franca?”

“A watson has come through from Tau Ceti, with a news report I think you should see. It’s old news, in a way—sent from Sol to Tau Ceti by hyperspace radio sixteen days ago. As soon as Grand Central received it, they relayed it to us.”

“Thanks. Pipe it down to my wall monitor, please.”

“Doing so. Close.”

Keith and Rissa both turned to face the wall. It was the BBC World Service, being read by an East Indian man with steel-gray hair. “Tensions,” he said, “continue between two of the Commonwealth governments. On one side: the United Nations of Sol, Epsilon Indi, and Tau Ceti. On the other, the Royal Government of Rehbollo. Rumors of further deterioration in the situation were fueled today by the terse announcement that Rehbollo is closing three more embassies—New York, Paris, and Tokyo. Coupled with the four other closings a week ago, this leaves only the Ottawa and Brussels embassies open in all of Sol system. The consular staffs from the embassies closed today have already departed on Waldahud starships for the Tau Ceti shortcut.”

The view cut to a beefy Waldahud face. The super at the bottom of the screen identified him as Plenipotentiary Daht Lasko em-Wooth. He spoke in English, without aid of a translator—a rare feat for a member of his race. “It’s with great regret that economic necessity has forced us into this move. As you know, the economies of all the Commonwealth races have been thrown into disarray by the unexpected development of interstellar commerce. Reducing the number of our embassies on Earth simply represents an adjustment to the times.”

The screen changed to show a middle-aged African woman, identified as Rita Negesh, Earth-Wald Political Scientist, Leeds University. “I don’t buy that—not for a minute,” she said. “If you ask me, Rehbollo is recalling its ambassadors.”

“As a prelude to what?” asked an off-camera male voice.

Negesh spread her arms. “Look, when humanity first moved out into space, all the pundits said the universe is so big and so bountiful, there was no possibility of material conflict between separate worlds. But the shortcut network changed all that; it forced us up close with other races, perhaps before we or they were ready.”

“And so?” said the unseen questioner again.

“And so,” said Negesh, “if we are moving toward an… an incident, it may not just be over economic issues. It may be something more basic—the simple fact that humans and Waldahudin get on each others’ nerves.”

The wall monitor changed back to the hologram of Lake Louise. Keith looked at Rissa, and let out a long sigh. “An ‘incident,’ ” he said, repeating the word. “Well, at least we’re both too old to be drafted.”

Rissa looked at him for a long moment. “I think that makes no difference,” she said, at last. “I think we’re already at the front lines.”