Starship Summer

FIVE

I was spared the nightmares, but the following night I was visited by even stranger visions.

I’d spent the day making small repairs around the ship and setting out my few belongings, the books I’d brought from Earth, the few pictures I’d not discarded in the general clear out and minimisation of my life when I decided to emigrate.

I cooked myself a Thai curry—practising what I would give to my new friends when they came later in the week—and finished off with a few double scotches while watching the sun set and the water of the bay turn silver in the light of the Ring.

It was midnight by the time I staggered to bed, fearing as always the return of the nightmare. Thanks to the alcohol I was asleep instantly.

I came awake in the early hours. I sat up, surprised that it was not the visions that had forced me from sleep, and then curious as to what had awoken me. Not a noise—the ship was silent around me—but a glow emanating from beyond the open door of my room.

I pulled on my trousers and cautiously, aware of my heartbeat, slipped from the room and trod along the corridor towards the lounge.

I stopped on the threshold, staring.

An insubstantial figure stood with its back to me, before the pedestal which, when the ship had been in working order, had housed the control matrix. The figure glowed green, giving off the only light in the room, and through it I could make out the lines of the far side of the chamber, as if it were a ghost or a projected image.

Even stranger than the fact of its presence was what the figure was doing. Lines of some bizarre script hung in the air before it, scrolling columns I was unable to make out. As I watched, the figure reached up and swiftly, with quick taps of its long index finger, touched certain characters and thus effected their disappearance.

I say ‘it’ for the figure was not human.

With its back to me, I was unable to determine just what race the alien belonged to: it was tall, attenuated, appearing more amphibian than mammal, scaled and fluked, with a very thin skull. I fancied that, should it turn towards me, I would have seen the narrow, puckered face of a fish. I recalled the fleeting vision I had had on my first night aboard the ship: it had been one and the same.

I was in no way alarmed. I knew I was not being visited by intruders, or haunted by spectres. There was a rational explanation behind the figure’s appearance. It was a projection, I thought, an alien light show.

I took a step forward, about to say something—some inane greeting or question—when instantly the vision vanished, and along with it the scrolling script.

I looked around the lounge, trying to find the source of the projection. I wondered how much of the ship’s original circuitry and software Hawk had left intact when he salvaged the vessel from the jungle. No doubt some malfunctioning holographic sub-routine was responsible for the alien apparition.

I returned to bed, slept soundly for the rest of the night, and awoke just after dawn. A gaggle of spearbills, which had taken to perching on the back of the starship, set up a melodic morning chorus. I recalled the exhibition of the previous evening, and then, belatedly, remembered my silent alien visitor.

I spent the rest of the morning crawling through the ship’s inspection vents, checking circuitry and relays. I learned a lot about how the thing was put together—and was surprised at how much of it was still intact—but was none the wiser as to how the spectral extraterrestrial might have manifested itself.

In the afternoon I sat before my com-terminal and accessed Chalcedony’s information nexus. I called up facts about all the space-faring alien races known to humankind, their history and space-going exploits.

There were three races whose level of technological progress had reached that of humankind—or almost: humanity was the first race to discover and develop the teleportation process, rendering spaceflight obsolete. Two alien races, the Zexu and the Qlax, had abandoned their space industry and paid humanity to use the Telemass relay stations. The third, the Mathan, were isolationist and maintained their space-fleet for use within their own three planet home system, and rarely ventured beyond.

I called up visuals of the races, though I vaguely recalled their appearances from holo-docs and magazines on Earth: the Zexu were humanoid, not dissimilar to Homo sapiens, if you discounted their fur and the fact that they were twice as tall as the tallest human; the Qlax were octopoid, and the Mathan tiny—creatures a metre tall which resembled bush babies.

I then called up the visuals of every non-space-faring alien race discovered, thinking that whoever had maintained the ship might have employed crew of lower technological status than themselves. But of the two dozen alien races extant, not one matched the apparition I had seen the night before.

I wondered if the answer was that the figure had never been the true representation of an extraterrestrial type, but merely a holographic image conjured by the ship’s owners—the alien equivalent of a cartoon character.

I took a break at lunch and, instead of repairing to the Fighting Jackeral for my customary beer and salad, had a quick sandwich and got back to work.

Something about the dimensions of the ship, which I had noticed while pulling myself through its innards, had made me wonder.

I made a series of measurements: the height of consoles, acceleration slings, and control pedestals; the width of inspection crawl-spaces, corridors and access tubes, and tried to work out from these which race might have manufactured and flown the ship.

I estimated that they must have been taller than humans, the Qlax and the Mathan, but not as tall as the Zexu… Which begged the question: had the ship belonged to none of the known races, but to one so far undiscovered? The thought filled me with a quickening excitement. I had visions of fame at being the first person to discover an unknown alien race; but I came back to earth when I considered the improbability of this scenario. The obvious answer was that my calculations were way out.

Tomorrow I’d go and see Hawk at his scrapyard, tell him about the haunted ship he’d sold me and go through the figures with him. I was sure his practical mind would come up with a more prosaic answer.

I was about to take a shower, then slip out for a beer at the Jackeral, when I heard a familiar and welcome voice call out from the foot of the ramp.

“David, are you in there?”

I hurried out, wiping my greasy hands on a rag.

Maddie stood with her feet planted in the sand, squinting up at me. She was wearing shorts and a poncho, which was a bizarre enough combination anyway, but these garments were clearly homemade. She gave the impression of a blonde doll dressed in clothes inexpertly stitched together by a five year-old.

“David, I hope I’m not interrupting—”

“Come on in. I’ll give you a guided tour.”

She climbed the ramp and stepped into what had been the airlock, peering around her in fascination.

“This is the very first time I’ve ever been in a spaceship,” she said.

I gave her a quick tour and finished in the lounge. “And this is where I spend most of the time.”

She looked around. “You’ve got it looking very homely, David. I like the wall hangings.”

“Imported all the way from the colony world of Iachimo. They depict moonset over Landfall canyon.”

“You lived there?”

“I spent a couple of weeks on Iachimo, years ago. The Telemass trip almost killed me.”

“But it didn’t put you off ‘massing to Chalcedony?”

I shrugged. “I’d heard a lot about the planet,” I said. And my need to get away from Earth had outweighed the fear of the Telemass process.

She pointed to the sofas ranged before the long viewscreen. “I like the effect of domestic things like the sofas and bookcases on the bridge of a starship. It works.”

“Thanks. Beer?”

“Love one.”

I slipped to the galley and came back with two beers. I poured Maddie’s into her own mug, which she pulled from her shoulder bag. She had seated herself, taking the precaution of spreading a piece of cloth to ensure that her bare legs didn’t come into contact with the cushion of the sofa.

Her eyes caught on the holocube of a young blonde girl, staring out and laughing at something, that stood on top of the bookcase. “Who is she?” Maddie asked.

I hesitated, then said, “Carrie, my daughter.”

“She looks a lovely kid.” There was something wistful, almost longing, in her tone. “She’s back on Earth?”

I nodded, trying to think of something to say in order to change the subject.

Relentlessly, she went on, “Will she visit you, David?”

I found myself lying without thinking about it. “I doubt it. My wife is fearful of the Telemass process. She thinks it’d be bad enough if you could make the transition in one jump, but not the four relays it takes to get here from Earth.” I shrugged. “I tried to point out that fatalities were one in a couple of million, but she wouldn’t listen to me.” The bit about Sally’s fears, at least, was true enough.

“Are you and your wife…?”

“Divorced. We parted last year.”

“Were you together long?”

“Ten years. It seems longer. It was such a sizeable and important part of my life.”

“Why did you come to Chalcedony, David? To get away from her?”

“To get away from Earth,” I said, and all the associations that planet held for me. Everything I knew on Earth reminded me of what I’d lost.

I went on, “What about you? Ever married?”

She smiled and shook her head. “No, never.”

“Never met the right person?”

“It’s more than just that,” she began, and stopped.

Into the silence, I said, “What happened?” and immediately regretted it. “I’m sorry. That’s rude. I shouldn’t have—”

“What happened?” She looked up. “You mean, why do I wear these strange clothes, and carry my own mug and cutlery around? Why am I some kind of freak?”

“I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that I’m curious. We’re friends, I like to think, and I’d like to know what happened.”

Maddie nodded slowly, staring into her drink. She looked up and said, “This happened way back, on Earth. I was at Cambridge, studying archaeology. This was a few years after the neuro-surgeon Callonezzi discovered the receptor sites in the hypothalamus. Apparently they’d lain dormant in humanity for millennia. At one time they probably played a vital part in our ability to survive… Anyway, he found that this area of the brain, if stimulated, gave the subject a… let’s call it a feeling for the history of things, objects, people, whatever. Only a mild feeling, a kind of vague empathy, an intuition. Obviously this had great potential in many fields—criminal investigations, personnel recruitment, art history—”

“And archaeology?” I said.

She smiled at me. “And archaeology. Just imagine having the ability to actually hold an ancient object and feel something of its history, its life: who owned it, what it had been used for. And skulls, David; the Callonezzi Process would allow archaeologists to touch the bones of the dead and reconstruct their lives… It was just too great an opportunity for a high-flying research graduate to miss.”

She fell silent, staring through the viewscreen at the bay but seeing what had happened all those years ago.

“So you went for it?”

“How could I refuse? I met others who had had the operation and they said it was like being suddenly granted another sense, one which they found impossible to believe they’d lived without for all their lives. I was young and ambitious—I wanted to learn everything. I wanted to know the secrets of history which until now had been beyond our reach. So I had the cut.”

“What went wrong?”

Her pale blue eyes seemed to die for a moment. “It was too successful. The operation gave me the ability, but something in the order of a thousand times more powerful than any previous subject. It opened me up to everything. Imagine that, David—imagine if everything around you, everything with human associations, gave off a jolt like an electric shock. When I accidentally touch something, I can feel the emotions of everyone who touched it before me, a dizzying emotional kaleidoscope that very nearly drives me insane.”

I gestured feebly. “Couldn’t they… I don’t know, reverse the operation, do something to damp down the effect?”

She smiled. “They did, and it worked. That was the terrible thing. I woke up after the first operation, and it was as if the world were on fire. Everything I touched screamed its history at me. The pain was unbearable. So Callonezzi and his team operated again, and damped down the effect. And this is the result. If I were to reach out and touch you, I’d feel your pain…” She looked at me, intuitively. “Your loss. The same if I were to touch something you’d touched. We imprint our emotional signature on everything around us, David, but thankfully most people can’t pick up these signals.”

I shrugged. “Isn’t it a bit like what Matt does, imprinting his emotions on those crystals?”

Maddie smiled at me. “I guess we’re all mood artists, David, in our own way. For me, it’s as if everything ever touched by human hands is as powerful as one of Matt’s crystals.”

“I can’t begin to understand what it must be like for you,” I began. “I’ve got used to it, over the years. Nearly twenty now. It’s okay if I’m careful, take precautions. But the worst thing…” She stopped.

“People,” I whispered. “You can’t touch people.”

“Can you imagine what that’s like, to crave physical contact with those you love, skin to skin, and to be denied the experience?”

I shook my head and murmured some platitude.

“Isn’t it ironical? The process that should have made me more receptive to the world, to the people around me, has had the opposite effect. It’s isolated me from everything.” She took a long swallow of beer and laughed. “Listen to me. Here I am, unloading all this rubbish on you.”

“I did ask, Maddie. I wanted to know.”

She sighed. “I’m fine most of the time. I have some great friends. Matt and Hawk. They’re good people. I just wish…”

“Maddie, I understand.”

She looked up at me. “What I wish is that I could help them, David. I’ve come into physical contact with them, accidentally, and experienced a little of their pain, and more than anything I want to help them.”

Lamely, I said, “I can tell that they think very highly of you, Maddie. Your friendship helps them.”

She smiled. “Thank you, David. You’re a good person, you know that? I’m glad you decided to move to Magenta Bay.”

I smiled. “I’m glad, too.” I gestured to our empty beers. “Another one?”

“That’d be great.”

I fetched two more bottles and changed the subject. “Dinner Friday evening, is there anything you can’t eat? And do you know what Matt and Hawk like?”

“They’ll eat anything. I like spicy food, myself.”

“Great. I was thinking I’d cook Thai. What about friends of Hawk and Matt—I remember Hawk saying that Matt wasn’t with anyone at the moment. What about Hawk himself?”

“He has someone. She lives with him at the scrapyard.” Her tone struck me as odd, censorious. I knew that Maddie had felt a lot for Hawk at one time, and I took this as jealousy.

I said awkwardly, “Perhaps I should invite her?”

“It would be a mistake, David. She… well, it wouldn’t work. She wouldn’t know how to take part.”

“She’s young?” I asked, thinking that could be the only explanation.

Maddie looked up at me and nodded. “She’s young,” she said, and left it at that.