Starship Summer

SEVEN

The following afternoon, before Hawk arrived to inspect the Mantis and the others came for dinner, I left the Fighting Jackeral with a beer and walked along the creaking, sun-warped timbers of the jetty. I came to the end and peered down at the silver, sequinned water of the bay as it sucked at the jetty’s barnacled columns. A young girl was sitting cross-legged nearby, a small blonde kid of about ten, fishing with a net. A part of me wanted to strike up a conversation with her—for the very same reasons, I supposed, that I had made myself confront the heaving waters below, and had come in the first place to live beside the sea. I needed to banish the fear, the fear of the element that had robbed me of Carrie. And I needed to get over the pain I felt every time I saw a girl who might have been an older version of my daughter. The hell of losing a child is that the future, the parental fantasy of the years that stretch ahead and the shared joys that will fill them, is suddenly ripped away, leaving you with nothing but fading memories of the past and an empty present. Self-pity is one refuge, but it’s way too easy and self-destructive. I know. I had gone down that road in the year after Carrie’s death, which was one of the reasons why my wife had left me. I could have gone two ways, after that: gone further down the futile road of self-pity, propelled by what I saw as Sally’s desertion, or faced the fool I had become and done something about it. I’d chosen the latter path, left Earth behind me and come to live beside the sea at Magenta.

Now the swell of the bay sickened me, and the child looked up and smiled hesitantly at my tears. Very quickly she jumped up and ran off clattering over the loose boards of the jetty.

I thought of Maddie and Hawk and Matt, my new friends who all carried the scars of the past, and I knew I had come to the right place.

A couple of hours later Hawk arrived with a carricase of tools and a diagnostic flatscreen.

I talked him through my investigations of the ship, the areas I’d examined and found nothing. I described the alien apparition, or projection, and Hawk asked me how many beers I’d been drinking.

As he moved around the lounge, examining sliding panels and concealed units, he said, “To think, I salvaged this tub, left it at the back of the yard and forgot about it for years. I admit it—I didn’t even examine the thing.”

I grunted a laugh. “Thought the golden goose was a turkey?”

“Go on—” his head was in a recess, his voice muffled “—rub it in.”

“Sorry, Hawk, but you know how it is when an amateur puts one over on an expert.”

He was peering into a recess in the bulkhead. “Strange,” he muttered, and he wasn’t talking about me or my childish quip.

“What?”

“I was expecting to find chips—or the alien equivalent. Fibre optics or something like.”

“And there’s nothing in there.” I knew that from my inspection of the previous day.

“Oh, there’s something in here okay, but it’s not what I was expecting.”

Intrigued, I tried to peer past his bulk. “What is it?”

“Inset into tubing which is moulded into the very skin of the ship—there’s a very thin strip of… well, it looks like crystal to me. Or something like crystal. Far as I can make out, the ship is cocooned in a matrix of the stuff. Never seen anything like it.”

“Alien,” I said.

“Too right.”

He looked at me, then moved along to the next inspection panel. He inserted his head and shoulders and attached the leads of his diagnostic com to whatever it was he had found, and was silent for a time.

I said, “Anything?”

“It’s connected to an energy source,” he reported back. “But I can’t tell what it is or where it’s located. I’m going to go through the rest of the ship, if that’s okay.”

“Be my guest. I’ll be in the galley if you need me. Dinner at eight.”

“Matt coming?”

“I contacted him last night. He said he’d be here just before eight—he was working on something. Maddie’s coming over at seven for a drink.”

Hawk picked up his carricase and paused on his way to the lateral corridor. “I wish Maddie could get over Matt.”

I looked at him. “You’re not jealous?”

He smiled. “I was, in the early days. Now I just don’t like to see Maddie hurt herself, wanting what she can’t have.”

I was about to say that she was adult, and could look after herself, but Hawk just shrugged and made his way along the corridor.

I retired to the galley and set about preparing dinner. I opened an imported red and drank liberally. An hour later the ship was suffused with the heady tang of oriental spices, and I was half cut.

I finished cooking and wandered up to the lounge. Hawk was still poking about in the bowels of the ship. I arranged the table, opened a few bottles of wine, and was about to go in search of Hawk to see if he wanted a drink when Maddie came up the ramp, waving a bottle and calling out, “David, what’s the incredible aroma?”

“Either Hawk’s frying the ship’s circuitry, or it’s the Thai curry.”

“Hawk’s here?”

I told her about the midnight alien visitor.

“Spooky. And he’s exorcising it?”

“Or something. Drink?”

“Wine will be great.”

She was dressed in a trim red trouser suit that, for once, didn’t look as though it had been run up by a blind seamstress. She noticed my glance and said, “I took extra care with this one. What do you think?”

“Suits you.”

“And the gloves. Silk. So if I do accidentally touch something…” She stopped as Hawk entered the lounge, mopping his face with a red bandanna. “The man himself. Found the ghosts?”

He slumped into a couch and accepted a beer. Only after a long drink did he reply, “No ghosts, but I did find a lot of incredible alien technology.” To me he said, “Like I mentioned, the crystal nexus cocoons the ship. My guess is that it’s this that’s projecting the images.”

“Any reason why?” Maddie asked.

“Search me. Something’s malfunctioning? A sub-routine that’s got into repetitive cycle mode? I can’t say. It’s alien. I’d be a fool to make a judgement.”

I gestured through the viewscreen to the bay. “Here’s Matt.”

He approached the headland on his wave-hopper, accelerated up the beach and came to a halt beneath the nose of the ship. He climbed off the hopper and locked the steering mechanism, his body-language tired.

A minute later he joined us, nodding to Hawk and Maddie and passing me a bottle of champagne. “To welcome you to Magenta.”

I thanked him and said, “I’ll save it until we have something jointly to celebrate. Wine?”

He sat down, tiredly, and took a long swallow from the glass I poured for him.

Maddie said, “David was just saying that his ship is haunted.” Matt looked at me, sceptical. “Haunted? I didn’t have you down as the type to see ghosts.”

“I don’t think whatever it is is a ghost,” I said. “But I’ve been having visitors.” And I told him about what I’d seen.

Hawk said, “I’ve checked it out. It’s nothing supernatural, as far as I can see. Something to do with the alien operating system.”

Matt shrugged. “There you are, then. Won’t the Qlax and the others have operating manuals that might tell you how to get rid of your visitors?”

Hawk was smiling. “If only it were that easy, Matt. But this little tub doesn’t belong to any of the alien races so far discovered.”

Matt stared at me. “No kidding?” He thought about it. “You mean the ship belonged to a race either now extinct, or yet to be discovered?”

“That’s about it,” Hawk said. “This galaxy alone is a big place. There’ll be many a race out there that we don’t know about.”

Matt said, more to himself, “Just think of it. All that alien art we’re in ignorance of…”

We thought about that for a time, and then Maddie said, “What about the art of the aliens we know about—the Qlax and the Mathan and those others?”

“The Zexu,” Matt said. “Well, the Mathan don’t produce anything we’d consider art. They look at the world in severely logical terms. They have no room for metaphor, and a race without the understanding of metaphor is unlikely to produce creative works of art. The Qlax are another matter. Everything to them is metaphor—which is fine, but we humans have great difficulty understanding their basic concepts, so we have no real appreciation of their creations.”

“And the Zexu?” Maddie asked.

Matt smiled. “The Zexu,” he said, “are the most creative race in existence. Every Zexu creates. It’s as if creation produces a drug in their heads, and they can’t help themselves. I’m particularly interested in a new development in Zexuan art at the moment—the art of recreating oneself.”

I stared at him. “How would that work?”

“The Zexuns consider the perfection of the self to be the highest achievement, spiritually. This has lately had an effect on their art. A school of Zexuan artists has been perfecting simulacra of themselves, in order, I suppose, to see themselves as others see them…”

The talk of art, which I listened to with fascination, and Maddie added to from time to time, continued as we moved to the table across the lounge and ate.

As the meal progressed, talk turned to life on Chalcedony, and then Matt dropped his bombshell. “I’ve been here over twenty years now, and lately I’ve been thinking of moving on.”

For a couple of awkward seconds no one knew quite what to say. Then Maddie spoke up, “Leaving Chalcedony?” She sounded stricken.

Matt shrugged. “I need new experiences. I’ve been looking at my work recently. I’m not happy with it.”

“And you think a move might help?” Hawk asked.

“Maybe. I am a bit isolated out here—which is strange for me to say, as the reason I came here in the first place was the desire for isolation.”

Maddie asked in a small voice, “Where will you go?”

“I’ve been thinking of returning to Earth. San Francisco, where I was born. If, that is, I can steel myself for the… how many Telemass relays is it now, David?”

“Four,” I said, “and each one seems to tear you apart and put you back together differently. I’d be loath to make the journey again.” Matt smiled. “I’d survive.”

“We’d miss you Matt,” Maddie said.

He laughed. “I won’t be going for a while yet. Six months, at least.”

“So you are definitely going?” Maddie asked.

“I’m seriously thinking about it,” Matt answered. “I suppose it all depends on the project I’m planning, and whether I consider it successful.”

“What’s that?” Maddie asked.

“Maddie, you should know better than to ask. You know I never talk about future projects.”

Maddie drew a histrionic hand across her brow. “Oh, the fragility of the creative process.”

Matt had the good grace to laugh. We finished the meal and I opened a sweet white wine. We moved to the couches ranged before the viewscreen and watched the sun set and the Ring of Tharssos brighten high above.

We chatted amiably about nothing in particular for a while, the comfortable banter of friends who have known each other for years. Oddly, even though I’d been on the planet for less than a week, I was made to feel part of the group, as if I too had known each of them for years.

At one point I mentioned I was looking for a part-time job—more, I joked, to keep me out of the Fighting Jackeral.

“I don’t see what’s wrong with spending half one’s life in the Jackeral,” Maddie said. “Look at me…”

This was open invitation for Hawk to say, “Yeah, just look. Fair warning, David—get that job or you’ll end up like Maddie.”

“We all have our foibles,” Maddie said primly. “Mine is the steady consumption of alcohol in pleasant company. Just because I don’t share your predilection for pre-pubescent alien girls.”

I looked at Hawk to see how he’d take this. He laughed. “Kee is an adult, Maddie. You know that. And anyway, we don’t have sex.”

Maddie stared at him. “You don’t? You never told me that.”

“I don’t tell you everything I don’t do, Maddie.” He shrugged. “Our relationship is platonic. It’s more like… I suppose like having a daughter.”

“But you told me you loved her?” Maddie said.

Hawk said, “So? You can love someone like a daughter, even if she isn’t technically your daughter.”

I looked at Maddie, wondering if her condition, her physical isolation, had over the years worked to deaden her empathy.

She said to me, “Do you understand that, David?”

I looked past her, to the holocube of the laughing blonde girl. I was overcome, suddenly, by the recollection of the love I had felt for my daughter. I nodded. “Of course. We can love anyone. If we can love someone, without physical intimacy, then isn’t that something to be cherished?”

In the quick ensuing silence I caught the bitter look on Maddie’s face as she stared across at Hawk, who was self-consciously gazing through the viewscreen at the Ring.

Matt broke the uneasy silence. “David, you said you were looking for work. What were you thinking of?”

I shrugged. “Something that’d keep me active for a couple of days a week. Nothing too stressful.”

“How about some courier work? The company I used went bust recently—they delivered my work materials once a week from MacIntyre and took my completed work back to the Telemass Station.”

So it’d be two days a week, a couple of trips down the coast to the capital. They charged me a couple of hundred a week. I’ll match that, if you’re interested.”

“That sounds perfect,” I said. The thought of getting down to the capital twice a week, and getting paid for the effort, appealed to me.

Hawk and Maddie were on speaking terms again. “Have you seen these apparitions?” Maddie was asking him.

Hawk shook his head. “Only David has.”

“What were they like?”

I told her. “Pretty archetypal aliens—before we met the Qlax and the Zexu, that is. Green, slim, amphibian-looking.”

“When did they appear?”

“I’m not sure. I’d been asleep a while. One, two-ish, maybe.”

She looked around the group. “It’s midnight now,” she said. “How about we dim the lights, keep quiet and wait for the alien spooks to show themselves?”

Matt laughed. “I feel twelve years old again, spending the night in the old Hooper place on the hill…”

“Why not?” Hawk shrugged. “It might help us work out where the projections come from.”

Maddie said to me, “You weren’t wanting to get rid of us and have an early night, David?”

“You kidding? And miss a ghost hunt with friends? I’ll get another bottle.”

I slipped into the galley, fumbled a bottle of wine from the rack—almost dropping it in the process—and staggered back to the lounge. Until I’d stood up, I didn’t know how drunk I was.

I opened the bottle and refilled glasses. I raised mine, “To the good ship Mantis and all who haunt her!”

We toasted the ship and I dimmed the lights. The only illumination in the lounge now was the light of the Ring that slanted in through the viewscreen, gilding everything silver.

We talked in whispers. Hawk said, “I wonder if there’s anywhere else on Chalcedony that’s haunted?” His voice was slurred.

Maddie murmured, “The Sanatorium.” In an aside to me, she explained, “That’s where I lived when I first came to Chalcedony. The day-room there is visited by the shade of an old resident.”

Matt laughed. “And I thought we were living in a rational age!”

An hour passed. We finished the bottle and I fetched another, moving very carefully this time as my body seemed in the grip of a mischievous agent which was trying to make me lie down. I made it to the galley, located the wine rack after a survey which seemed to last five minutes, and extracted a bottle. Holding it like a tolling bell, I reeled back towards the lounge, barging from wall to wall of the corridor and giving thanks that it was so narrow.

I heard a gasp from the lounge, and what I saw when I came to the entrance had the effect of sobering me.

I leaned against the frame and stared.

The green figure, as diaphanous as before, was standing beside the control pedestal, its fingers moving rapidly through the air.

Beyond, in the silver light, I made out the startled faces of my friends, transfixed. I returned my attention to the alien figure, attempting this time to see if it was indeed being projected, and if so from where.

But I saw no signs of beamed light from the walls of the lounge. I tried to work out how it might have appeared—other than by some occult agency—but my mind was too fuddled.

Then there was sudden movement from beyond the standing figure, and Hawk called out, “Maddie!”

I peered into the gloom. Maddie had stood, unsteadily, like me the worse for wine. She hesitated, staring at the alien apparition for a second. Then, quite deliberately, she pulled the silk glove from her right hand and stepped towards the alien.

I saw her face in the silver light. I saw her expression of mingled determination and fear as she approached the alien and reached out.

“No!” Hawk called, leaping to his feet.

Maddie’s hand entered the ghost, and instantly she gasped and collapsed. Hawk caught her before she hit the deck.

Then the green figure vanished, as if it had never been there, and I lurched towards the controls and upped the lighting.

Hawk was carrying Maddie back to the couch, ensuring that his flesh didn’t make contact with hers.

Matt and I were beside them, staring down at Maddie. She was coming to, staring up at us, eyes blinking quickly in the aftermath of the encounter.

I found her mug, wrapped it in a cloth to ensure that I didn’t touch it with my skin, and filled it with water.

Hawk held it to her lips and she drank.

A minute later she was sitting up. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I was foolish. I shouldn’t have… I’m okay. I’m fine now.”

I could see that Hawk wanted to touch her. His hand hovered close to her head, as if needing to stroke her blonde curls. “Maddie…” He hesitated, looking at me.

When he said, “Maddie, what did you sense?” I told myself that his curiosity was excusable, and in no way mitigated his concern for her.

She blinked, far away, then managed, “I felt… I felt the being, Hawk! I actually felt the alien!” Her eyes clouded. “Or I sensed its essence…” She was weeping now. “I don’t know. Felt or sensed? Anyway, I know…”

My heart, I realised then, was thumping wildly. Matt leaned forward, “Know what, Maddie?” he asked.

Her eyes flicked towards him, staring. “I know the aliens called themselves the Yall,” she said. “And I know they constructed the Golden Column.”