Blade, page 5
part #4 of Inverted Frontier Series
Several people started to speak, but Abby’s clear voice rose above the others. She stood before the dais, excitement gleaming bright in her eyes as she exclaimed, “But this means there is life here! We thought Ryo a dead system, but something held on—”
“We don’t know that,” Sayuri interrupted, the two of them standing side by side. They were of an age, both ship-born and younger by far than most of the ship’s company. Seeming oblivious of shy Abby’s resentful gaze, Sayuri went on, “It’s just as probable this great ship has come here to explore, like we have.”
Riffan waved a hand from where he stood, nearly eclipsed behind Shoran’s tall figure. His voice rang out over the crowd murmur, saying, “It’s not surprising the crew of this great ship is being cautious. I would choose to be cautious, seeing two such alien ships, and one of them now gone dark.”
“It’s likely they’re aware of Griffin,” Urban acknowledged, speaking to be heard over the ongoing chatter. “But not of Dragon. We’re still at such a distance, it’s doubtful they’ve observed us.”
An alert from the data gate told him the Bio-mechanic’s submind had returned, closely followed by the Cryptologist’s. But Clemantine had still not come home.
Abby, usually so silent at these gatherings, surprised Urban by speaking again, her eyes wide and her voice high with tension as she strove to be heard. “I think Riffan is right, though. If they saw Griffin, and saw it go dark, that would look like a threat . . . wouldn’t it?”
Urban answered gently, “I think it would, but there was no choice in it.”
“Let’s all take seats!” Vytet urged, projecting his voice over all the murmured conversations. “Let’s bring some order to this discussion.”
People at once began to move into the rows, but not Jolly. He looked up from where he stood at the foot of the dais and fixed Urban with a doubting gaze. “But we’re not a threat and it’s wrong to let them think we are. That’s what Abby means.” He turned to her. “Right?”
She nodded, and Jolly went on. “We need to contact these people. Now. Let them know who we are and where we are. Let them start to trust us.”
Urban might have acceded to this strategy, except for Kona. Even before Jolly finished, Kona rose from the seat he had just taken. “I disagree,” he announced in his booming voice. “This great ship is playing at stealth. Its caution is understandable, but we must exercise caution too. I want to know who or what is animating it before we give anything else away—and the swiftest way to induce an answer is to have Griffin hit it with radar. If it’s listening at all, that will tell it stealth has failed. And then we can demand a response.”
This drew a general murmur of agreement—though not from Abby. Still standing in front of the dais, she turned to confront Kona, and to Urban’s astonishment she exclaimed, “That is far too aggressive! It will terrify them.”
Kona regarded her, certainly as surprised as Urban that she had dared to confront him. He told her gently, “You may be right, but what matters more is that it will redefine the situation, allowing negotiation to begin.”
Abby looked to Jolly, but met only an uncertain frown. So she turned a pleading gaze on Urban. He could give her only an apologetic smile. “I think Kona is right,” he said. “For our own security, we need to define what’s aboard that ship—and their reaction is going to tell us a lot.”
Abby bit her lip and nodded, her cheeks flushed red. At the same time, another notice reached Urban from the data gate: Clemantine had come home at last. Not just a submind, but her ghost.
She had not taken a seat, but remained standing, alone now, by the doorway. He stepped down from the dais and went to her, sure this would go hard. Proof of that came when her calm expression transformed to wide-eyed shock as she learned what she had done.
Reaching her, he extended his hands, wanting to offer what comfort he could, but she drew back, a palm half-raised in a warding gesture as her sharp gaze warned him not to trespass.
Consternation on his part, swiftly followed by resentment that she would keep him at such a distance. And then relief. Better for her if she handled this on her own. He would say the wrong thing anyway.
He nodded and stepped back. “I’ll take care of the radar,” he announced in a voice audible to everyone. And then, eyeing her, “You’ll need to record a second message. Let them know we’ve identified them as a great ship and that we want their name and history.”
Alaka‘i Onyx – Pilot’s Log
1281:092:12:51 HSW
Stealth has failed. We have been found. The brush of radar confirms it. And we have been identified as what we are—a great ship.
So why are we still alive?
Ashok sees a chance for us within this interlude, a chance arising out of the inexplicable behavior of this marauder, so different from those encountered throughout our parallel histories. Clever Ashok! You, who can extend a limb into the black box of the unknown and pull hope from it.
How I wish I shared your hope.
Chapter
8
Rage and despair contended within the computational layers that housed the mind of Alaka‘i Onyx’s pilot. His name—his human name now rarely remembered—was Tio Suthrom.
On his long-ago voyage to the frontier, Tio Suthrom had found whole worlds scorched and destroyed by the marauders. On his return to Hupo Sei, he’d found no worlds at all, only debris. In disgust, in despair, he shut himself down. Much later, the Inventions roused him and he embarked on a new life, a better life.
The marauder could take it all away.
Tio Suthrom would destroy the alien vessel if he could, but how? He had no weapon except the mass of his ship, of Alaka‘i Onyx, and that was useless, because the marauder would have hours or days to deploy its gun and vaporize him if he attempted to ram it.
He didn’t even know where the marauder was anymore, not since it had gone dark. Was it closing in? Or worse, was it heading out of the system, chasing Ashok’s warning messages across the void to Hupo Sei? Those messages, relayed at light speed along a chain of communication buoys he’d laid out on the crossing to Ryo, would arrive long before the marauder. The Core Forum would have years to prepare, while Tio Suthrom expected his own fate to be decided within hours at most, or possibly within the next few seconds.
Unable any longer to contain his fear, he spoke it aloud, his voice emanating from the walls surrounding Ashok’s hive. “Understanding fails me, my friend. Speak some theory of hope, I beg you.”
Eight of the Invention’s nine instances occupied the sockets of their square charging grid. The cohort’s ninth instance had emerged to carry out scheduled maintenance on its habitat. It was this one that answered Tio Suthrom. The Inventions did not naturally speak aloud, but Ashok had learned to do so. Ashok had adapted in many ways, all for Tio Suthrom’s comfort and convenience.
“It is not a theory of hope I have pulled from the black box of the unknown,” the instance announced, generating a hint of human humor in its synthesized voice. “But a theory of possibility.”
“You’ve been reading my log,” Tio Suthrom accused, stunned to discover it and also assaulted by guilt, for all the doubt and despair revealed there.
“I felt it necessary to map your emotional state during this uncertain time.”
“Ah,” Tio Suthrom said. “Yes.”
Ashok had been his companion from the beginning of this life and knew well all of his human vulnerabilities. More than once, when the despair grew too great, Ashok had gently reminded him of the need to monitor and edit his mental state.
Not something Tio Suthrom wished to discuss. So instead, he latched on to Ashok’s earlier words. “Of what possibility do you speak, Ashok?”
“An odd tangled thought teases at my instances: could it be the marauder is not a marauder? Though its appearance indicates it is, its behavior suggests otherwise. I am weighing the possibility that its appearance is a deception. In that possibility may lie the answer to why our existence continues rather than reaching the expected abrupt end.”
Tio Suthrom generated a deep sigh. “Far more likely the message is the deception.”
“It seemed so at first. It seemed we were being lured into answering, into confirming our existence. But we have been found, my friend. And yet for some unknown reason we still have not been murdered.”
“I too have a theory to explain the bizarre behavior of this marauder,” Tio Suthrom said.
“Tell it to me.”
“It has not destroyed us because it wants to colonize us, to infect our systems and thereafter use Alaka‘i Onyx as a stealth weapon against our precious home.”
An extended silence followed this declaration, stretching over multiple seconds while energy usage spiked within the grid.
“The cohort deems this a plausible assessment,” Ashok finally reported.
Tio Suthrom said, “Better to destroy myself than to allow it to happen.”
Ashok still spoke with utter calm. “We now have two theories. Let us test my theory while we prepare for yours.”
“You want us to reply to the marauder?”
“Yes. There is nothing to lose by it, but maybe, there is something to gain.”
Chapter
9
The Astronomer calculated the hours required for Dragon’s second message to reach the great ship, and the hours that would elapse before a reply could be received. And though there was no way to know how long the great ship might take to issue a response—or if it would speak at all—as the time drew near when a response might be expected, Riffan returned to the amphitheater.
He wasn’t alone. Though there had been no formal call for an assembly, Riffan was pleased to find nearly a third of the ship’s company already there, standing about and quietly chatting. Still chatting. One on one. Two on two. Small conversations debating the shocking fate of Clemantine’s dark twin and speculating on the nature of the anomalous great ship, even drawing parallels between the two. Guilt always a part of it. Riffan was not immune. The same refrain kept repeating in his mind: We should have done more for Griffin.
Just like Griffin, and like Dragon, every great ship was piloted by a human mind—but human minds could come undone.
Riffan moved up the side aisle, responding with a grim smile, a short nod, whenever he made eye contact. For once, he was all talked out. And there was Kona, sitting alone in the third row, arms crossed over his chest, simply waiting. Kona wasn’t one to indulge in idle chatter, so Riffan went to sit with him.
The minimal time came, and a hush fell over the gathering. Seconds slipped past. A full minute. Two. Three.
Disappointed whispers.
Vytet separated himself from a group milling by one of the doorways. His expression lit with a slight amused smile as numerous faces turned toward him. “It could be some time,” he reminded everyone.
Truth. It could be hours; it could be days.
Or the great ship might never reply.
Naresh, in the second row, shifted his seat, moving closer to Kona and Riffan. He looked up at them, one arm resting on the back of his chair. “I think it won’t be more than a few minutes,” he said. “They gain nothing by antagonizing us.”
“We don’t know what they are,” Kona answered gruffly. “Or what they’re thinking.”
Naresh furrowed his brow, started to say something, thought better of it, and turned back to face the dais. Time slipped past. A few more people came in, sat down. Soft voices speculated, while Riffan listened to the slow beat of his heart, counting past a thousand, losing track only when an alert reached his atrium.
An incoming message! Not from Griffin.
He caught his breath, straightened, leaned forward as if that would help him to listen.
The message began with a single enthusiastic word arriving from across the void: “Hello!”
A human voice, male, speaking in the language of the Dragoneers. That had been the first language in Clemantine’s initial hail.
“Hello and greetings!”
Though cheery on the surface, Riffan felt sure he heard a slight nervous tremor in the words—and why not? Who wouldn’t be nervous at such an encounter amid the silent ruins of the Hallowed Vasties?
“I offer up my identity as you have commanded, O great hunter from distant reaches! I am Tio Suthrom, pilot of the great ship Alaka‘i Onyx, wandering the Great Silence. I exist as a haven of intelligence, though I am devoid of organic life. Spare me and speak further if it be your will. Stunned am I that you speak at all and in the language of a biological form. I have no data supporting such communication in all my known history.”
A tone indicated the message had ended.
Riffan’s heart hammered, his voice a shocked whisper as he murmured, “Love and Nature and the Cosmic First Light!” His exclamation one of many as astonishment swept the gathering.
Turning to Kona, he demanded to know, “Did you catch that? ‘O great hunter from distant reaches.’ Doesn’t that sound like a reference to the Chenzeme? Could this Tio Suthrom know of the Chenzeme?”
Riffan was so amazed and wonderstruck at the possibility, it took him a few seconds to notice Kona’s shocked expression, lips parted and his stern eyes staring at nothing.
Abruptly, Kona surged to his feet. In a booming voice that silenced all others, he declared, “This pilot knows us. He must have been to the frontier, and back again, because he knows us as Chenzeme and he is seeking to ingratiate himself with this claim that he carries no life! I want to know if he’s done so before, even to aiding the monsters in their war of extermination. And if he has—”
“No, Kona!”
It was Vytet who dared to interrupt him. He stood at the front of the amphitheater, arm outstretched, palm raised. “Stop, my friend,” he insisted. “We must not make any such assumption. A multitude of possibilities lie behind Tio Suthrom’s words. Do not make him into that enemy who has haunted you and I from our long-ago youth.”
In the stark silence that followed, Riffan reminded himself that Kona was one of the eldest here. Unlike most of them, he had not been born at Deception Well. He and Vytet and Clemantine had migrated there, three among a handful of refugees, forcefully off-loaded in an abandoned city. They were the founders. They’d made a new life at Deception Well, for themselves and for all who came after, but the trauma they’d endured remained with them still.
Now Riffan felt a dangerous heat radiating from Kona; he noted the trembling induced by the man’s barely contained rage. Instinct urged him to move away, but at the same time, some deep courage stirred within him and, moved by it, he gently touched the back of Kona’s hand.
The big man flinched away, half turning as he looked down, scourging Riffan with a fierce glare.
Riffan did not look away. “Vytet is right,” he said gently. “We’ll learn the truth in the fullness of time and more often than not, truth has the capacity to surprise.”
Kona’s jaw tensed. Breath hissed past his teeth. “Surprises are rarely good,” he countered. But he took his seat again. A clenched fist and the bloodless gleam of his knuckles testified to his ongoing turmoil.
A rustle, a shared sigh as people resumed their conversations. Riffan looked behind to where Urban usually sat—but he was not there. The fourth row was empty.
He turned back as Vytet announced, “The Scholar will speak.”
The Apparatchik’s disembodied voice informed them, “I have located a historical record of a great ship bearing the name Alaka‘i Onyx and piloted by Tio Suthrom. The ship was one of three companion ships assembled in the shipyard at Hupo Sei in the early years of the expansion. The other two great ships bore the names Alaka‘i Jade and Alaka‘i Firoza.”
A discussion ensued: principally Pasha, Vytet, and Tarnya debating what form their response should take, while more people arrived, filling in the seats.
Riffan scarcely listened, haunted as he was by Kona’s suspicions and by his own memories of how Lezuri had first breached Dragon’s defenses and then taken advantage of Riffan’s innate trust and curiosity in a brutal play to seize the courser for his own.
Unsure what to say, but needing to communicate his concerns, he stood, raised a hand, caught Vytet’s eye. And as Tarnya completed her argument of what exactly should be said, of what should be explained to the ancient and possibly addled great ship, Vytet nodded that he should go next.
His thoughts took shape as he spoke, coming together in words that surprised him.
“I think Kona’s suspicions should guide us. There is something off about this Alaka‘i Onyx. Granted, that may be just an artifact of the distance between us. This ship’s history and ours diverged a very long time ago. Since then, we’ve spent millennia on different paths and that is time enough for . . . well . . . almost anything. What I mean is, we have no way to know what this ship is really. And until we know, we cannot trust anything it tells us.”
Naresh turned to eye Riffan, his elbow resting on the back of his seat. And as Riffan finished speaking, Naresh asked in a skeptical tone, “Are you suspecting another trap like the Rock?”
Riffan blushed and bit his lip, feeling himself utterly transparent. Even so, he gave Naresh a careful answer. “I don’t know and that is my point. We have no way of knowing, which is why I counsel an utmost caution. We ought to say little of ourselves until we have sent probes to examine this vessel and determine what it is and what it’s capable of doing.”
As he resumed his seat, Pasha stood up from hers in the front row. “I think we will find it is exactly what it appears to be: an ancient great ship possessed of a long and traumatic history that I am anxious to understand. All that said—Riffan is not wrong.”
“Sooth,” Kona agreed, low and grim, remaining seated as he spoke. “We’ll send an outrider to approach this Alaka‘i Onyx, with instructions to deploy a compliment of scout-bots and micro-probes to assess its capabilities.”
