Echoes of Earth (16 page)

“All our instruments were hit at the same time,” said Sivio, “regardless of where they were in the system. Whatever that was, I think we can safely assume it was ftl.”

“Impressive,” said Schievenin, his long face even more serious than usual, with his eyes reflecting the wonder that everyone must have been feeling right then. “Do we try again?”

Hatzis didn’t give him an answer immediately. Instead, she turned to Kovistra. “How will we know if we’ve received a reply?” she asked.

“The communicator tells us,” said Kovistra. “As near as I can figure it. From what the Gifts told Peter, there should be no missing it.”

“If it’s anything like that first transmission,” said Sivio, “I’ll believe you.”

Hatzis noted alarmed communications from other members of her crew. However, for all the surprise and alarm, nothing had been damaged.

“Okay, Nalini,” she said after some consideration. “Try the repeats. Jayme, warn everyone this time. We know what to expect now, and it doesn’t seem to be doing us any actual damage, but I want them kept posted on everything we’re doing here. Send the message out twice more, and then we’ll see if we get any replies.”

She settled back to watch Kovistra and Schievenin in action. They worked smoothly, calmly together, as though fiddling with a crystal radio set rather than some mysterious alien artifact. The message they had composed was similarly workaday, simply identifying the source of the transmission and requesting a reply. Nothing world shattering. But if they did receive a reply, that would change everything.

Hatzis found herself silently praying that it would work—as everyone else must have been, she imagined. Now that the possibility existed that they might be able to talk to the people back home again, she was surprised at how much she wanted it to come true. It had never even been an option before now, so she had kept her desires to reestablish contact with Earth carefully in check. It wouldn’t do to be entertaining such desires; disappointment and despondency lay down that path.

It wasn’t that she felt she wasn’t qualified to command the mission, either. She was, and she thought she was doing a good job at it, too. But she wasn’t enjoying it. The responsibility and workload were just too great under these circumstances. So the idea of being able to once again shuck the ultimate decision onto UNESSPRO back home was a pleasing one for her. Which was why, she thought, she had unwittingly crossed her fingers as they prepared to send the message a second time.

Again the instruments grayed as the communicator sent its message out into space. Or
through
space? she wondered.
Around
it? However it happened, this time they were prepared for it, and better able to measure what happened.

“I think we’ve nailed the source of the transmission,” said Sivio. “It’s not the Hub, as we assumed.” He paused uncertainly. “It’s the entire structure. It appears to be acting like a giant antenna.”

The revelation astonished Hatzis, although perhaps it shouldn’t have. It went a long way in explaining a few things that had thus far remained a mystery, such as the ring itself. Up until now, they had found no actual purpose for the ring, except as a possible medium for the instantaneous transport system. But it made sense that it was in fact a component of the communicator itself, albeit a component over thirty thousand kilometers across.

It also made sense of something else, too.

“The eleventh gift,” she muttered, finally understanding.

“It has to be,” Sivio agreed. “The Hub, the Library, the Gallery, the Science Hall, the Lab, the Dark Room, the Map Room, the room of the Gifts, the Dry Dock, and the Surgery—that makes ten. And they said there were eleven. This must be it.”

Hatzis nodded slowly as the third and final transmission was sent. She had previously assumed that the artificial gravity in the spindles had been the eleventh gift, but this seemed more logical. This was something they could use.

“Transmission concluded,” said Kovistra. “Powering down permanently. Well done, Donald. The software performed beautifully.”

He smiled. “As far as we can tell,” he said. “I guess all we can do now is wait to see what comes back.”

“
If
something comes back, that is,” said Kovistra. “My guess is—”

But she got no further.

Half the screens in Hatzis’s display flickered as an energy surge rolled around the ring encircling Adrasteia. What did come through indicated vibration of some kind, as though the spindles were experiencing an earthquake. Droids skittered across slippery floors, trying to maintain balance; Alander stirred from his sleep in the Dark Room; every picture blurred as the vibration peaked.

Then, just as suddenly, it died away, fading with a faint rumble into the background before disappearing altogether.

“What the fuck was that?” Alander asked, rubbing his eyes at the droid that had come to check on him.

“We’re not sure,” said Hatzis distractedly, watching the crew frantically trying to work out what had happened. “Sivio? What have you got?”

“We think it came from the ring,” Sivio concluded after a minute of consultation with the others.

“But what caused the vibration?” Hatzis pressed, keeping a close check on her excitement.

“It’s an antenna,” said Kovistra. “Presumably it picks up signals as well as transmits them.”

“Are you telling me that the communicator registered a reply to our message?
Already
?”

“I’m not telling you anything yet. Maybe it was just noise, or an echo. Or perhaps the signal we received was simply too faint.”

“Too
faint
? That vibration had enough energy to shake apart a small moon!”

“I’ve analyzed the vibrations,” said Schievenin. “It doesn’t seem to contain a signal of any kind. Nothing the
Tipler
recognizes, anyway.”

Hatzis’s excitement ebbed. She didn’t need to add the obvious:
nothing from Earth.

“Is there any way to tell where it came from?” put in Sivio.

Kovistra shook her head, frowning. “No,” she said. “Maybe our software patches aren’t working properly. I don’t know. We’ll try to look into it.”

“Do so,” Hatzis ordered. “And if you learn anything at all, I want to know about it immediately, okay?”

Kovistra was about to turn back to her work when she hesitated. “Sorry, Caryl,” she said. “I know you really wanted this to work.”

Hatzis just nodded, thinking,
More than you’ll ever know, Nalini. More than you’ll ever know.

1.2.2

“Caryl, I want Peter to test-fly the ship in Spindle Six.”

In the wake of the communicator test, Alander had been unable to return to sleep. He had floated in darkness, restless and irritable, for half an hour. Cleo Samson’s voice suddenly cutting across the silence was, therefore, a welcome interruption for him.

“You want
what
?” Out of the blackness emerged an illusion of the
Tipler’
s survey manager, one of the very few times she had appeared to him “in the flesh.” She was a short woman, which matched her hair and temper, but there was strength in her shoulders and hands. Her gaze was direct, like her manner.

Samson appeared also, forming an equilateral triangle between the three of them. “It makes sense,” she said. “We need something concrete to back up what the Gifts are saying. I mean, for all we know, the Spinners could just be playing mind games with us.”

“The communicator—”

“Wasn’t exactly what I would call an unqualified success.”

“No, it wasn’t,” agreed Hatzis. “Which is why I’ll need more than just your suspicions to authorize such a thing. A useless communicator is one thing, but risking a crew member in an alien vessel is something else entirely. However, if you have something other than paranoia to support your argument, I’m prepared to listen.”

“All right,” she said, turning to Alander. “Peter, I need you to ask the Gifts something.”

He knew there had to be a reason why the discussion had been brought to him.

“Okay,” he said. “What is it you’d like to know?”

“I want to know whether the ship has the ability to communicate ftl.”

Alander nodded, realizing what she had in mind. “Gifts?” His own voice sounded almost thunderous in the emptiness around him, much louder than Hatzis’s or Samson’s.

“Yes, Peter?”

“Tell me. Is it possible to use the ship in Spindle Six to test the ftl communicator? Could we fly it somewhere and send a message back to Adrasteia to see if it arrives here okay?”

“Of course,” replied the Gifts. “Such a procedure would be very simple.”

“Well, Caryl?” Samson didn’t look smug, just expectant.

“It makes sense,” Hatzis admitted. “And I’ll allow it if Peter agrees.”

Her easy acceptance of the idea surprised him. Was it that important to get the communicator working? It must have been if she was prepared to okay something like this. After all, the risks of testing the alien vessel were very real, too.

“Sure,” he said after a moment’s consideration. Despite his own apprehension about riding in the vessel, he did like the idea of having a little freedom from the others. “Why not?”

“Then we’ll do it,” she said. “But first, Peter, you eat. Your metabolism is still run down. I don’t want you blacking out on us again.”

“Did the Gifts send the bug down to the shuttle as we asked?”

“It’s already been and come back. You now have supplies, but don’t binge. We have no idea how long the rain is going to last down there.”

He nodded, feeling the first stirring of excitement. “Understood. I’ll be at the Hub in a moment.”

“Cleo, go tell Otto that Peter will be in the Dry Dock soon,” Hatzis said.

Samson vanished without another word, while Alander groaned.

“Do you have to do that?” he said.

“You’re not going out there alone, Peter. I want a droid with you at all times—
and
a full conSense link. The ship is Otto’s baby, so he’ll be with you. You’re not going to try any stunts like you did with the shuttle, if I can help it.”

He smiled at her stern expression.
So much for freedom,
he thought.

* * *

Alander stood on the gantry, watching as the black sphere
circled its enormous white parent. He could feel the irregular tug of gravitational waves through his all-too-massive flesh, and he began to have second thoughts about the whole test-flight idea. What was he supposed to do? Jump on it and hope for the best?

“Is this the sort of ship the Spinners use?” he asked the Gifts, more as a distraction from his anxieties than out of interest.

“No,” they replied. “They have more advanced means of traveling at their disposal. This hole ship—which in your language would be the closest translation for its name—is a more primitive method of travel, reserved for nascent civilizations such as your own.”

“How very generous,” he said dryly.

“You cannot expect to be given all of their knowledge and wisdom, Peter,” said the Gifts in a slightly reproving tone. “Theirs is an advanced civilization. They can’t simply impart to you everything they have ever learned. They have been evolving for millennia. You must attain their degree of sophistication of your own accord; the gifts they have given you are intended to urge you in the right direction.”

He thought of his original’s dead-end bacteria, trapped forever by the laws of physics and unlucky circumstance. “So basically they’re throwing us a few scraps. Is that what you’re saying?”

“If you mean they have given you things they no longer have need for, then yes, this is true. All of the gifts are from an earlier stage of their development.”

Alander turned again to the vessel before him, wondering at the technologies the Spinners must have achieved, trying to imagine the kind of craft they traveled in. Were they bigger? Faster? What? The mind boggled at the possibilities. And maybe that was just it: His mind, like those of all humans, virtual or otherwise, was not ready for the technology the Spinners possessed. Christ, they were barely able to grasp the few things they had been given already, so what chance did they have of grasping an even higher technology? That’s why they had been thrown scraps. It was all they could deal with right now.

Thinking that he might get a hint of how the thing worked, Alander asked, “So why is it called a hole ship?”

“That is simply its name, Peter,” the Gifts replied. “Why were wheeled automobiles from your home planet cars?”

He laughed at this. “I have no idea,” he admitted. “But I imagine it has some origin in Latin.”

“Indeed,” the Gifts went on. “And the word from which
hole ship
has been translated would have also had its origins in one of the Spinners’ own ancient languages. So to attempt to explain it to you now would be futile.”

Alander shrugged. “No harm in asking,” he said. Then: “I take it you’ll be showing me how to fly this contraption?”

“Once the hole ship has departed the spindle, all communication between us will cease.”

“
What?
But how am—?”

“Don’t worry, Peter,” the Gifts interrupted. “There is an AI on board that will instruct you in all operations of the craft. We shall speak again on your return.”

He didn’t feel reassured but nodded anyway. “Assuming I get back,” he mumbled to himself.

A section of the gantry a third of the way around the massive chamber glowed gold.

“I presume that’s where I’m supposed to go?” He felt nervous.

“Yes, Peter. The hole ship will be ready for you by the time you arrive.”

As he walked, he noticed a section of the gantry bulge out toward the hole ship. At the same time, the rotation of the black sphere began to slow.

“We’re getting some weird readings,” Sivio announced.

“I can’t feel anything.” Wyra, teleoperating the droid via conSense, clutched at Peter’s back, looking for all the world like a mechanical monkey crossed with a sea anemone. The droid’s sensors waved constantly, tasting the environment dozens of ways at once.

“Peter?” Samson’s voice came loud and clear through the conSense link. Alander sensed an edge of fatigue or strain in it that surprised him. Concern for him? She had been distant since the episode with the communicator, so maybe she had other things on her mind. Part of him wondered if she was losing interest now that he wasn’t playing so hard to get.