Engine City (14 page)

The octopod waved a limb. “We know little of the past,” it said. “The past is eaten and assimilated. We do not share the interest of all your kinds, in”—it made a poking, stirring motion of its bunched fingertips—“what remains. We prefer to reach for the new fruit, the fresh fish, the bright strange molecules.”

“It is possible to learn from the past,” said Elizabeth.

The octopod fixed her with its multiple gaze. “It is not. We have observed your kind for some time, and the saur’s kind for longer. We see no evidence of this learning of which you speak.”

“Very well then,” said Elizabeth. “Let us speak of the present and the future.”

The octopod’s fiber-optic fur moved as though a wind passed over it. Its fingers flowered to thistledown.

“That is good,” it said. It placed fingertips together, cat’s-cradling a sphere, then expanded the sketched ball like a child’s construction toy. “We are part of a wave-front of our kind that is passing through what you call”—the ball shrank, solidified—“your sphere. Some of it is already deep within your sphere, other parts—such as ourselves—are still outside, but we will soon be within.”

Elizabeth winced at the cacophony as Gregor, Matt, and others shouted simultaneously. She snapped her fingers by one ear to tune them out for a minute.

“Do you intend to settle on our planets?”

The octopod fanned two of its hands. “Only the unoccupied portions. There is no need for conflict. Your kinds do not make full use of the biospheres.”

Elizabeth stared at the alien—for the first time seeing it as alien.

“You must be aware,” she said, “that our populations are increasing, and expanding into what you call the unoccupied portions. That could result in conflict in the future.”

“Khaphthash’s people are of your people,” said the octopod. “They too increase, but they do not come into conflict with us. You share your planets with the other hominidae, with the saurs and with the great squid, and you do not fight. What is one species more? By developing the unused parts of your planets we could offer you much to exchange, as do the species which are there already. We are aware that the world-minds may wish us to fight, to diminish our numbers. We wish to avoid this by becoming that of you as we are that of Khaphthash’s people.”

“I’m sorry,” said Elizabeth. “I don’t understand that . . . last thing you said.”

“We and Khaphthash’s people wish to join the Bright Star Cultures.”

Elizabeth and Delavar have returned. With them around the table are Gregor, Matt, Salasso. Zachary Gould, the captain, is chairing. Susan sits to one side, running her cameras and scribbling notes. The room is spartan and terrifying. It smells vaguely of food. Along two walls it has windows, but only an occasional rolling glimpse of the planet below, or a longer and less reassuring look at the gas giant above, make them anything but black mirrors.

The discussion has been going on for some time.

“It’s very straightforward,” Matt says. “They’re telling us”—he shifts to the breathy register of the octopods—“ ‘Resistance is useless. You will assimilate us.’ ”

The sough of ventilation and the creak of bulkheads are for a moment loud.

“I’ll give you the first,” says Elizabeth. “I’m not so sure about the second.”

“My view is the opposite of Elizabeth’s,” says Salasso. “The human capacity for both resistance and assimilation is considerable. The choice is genuine.”

“It strikes me,” says Gregor, “that both alternatives may be pursued. Our friend Volkov set out to persuade Nova Babylonia to prepare for resistance, after he failed to persuade us. We know he is very persuasive, especially when he doesn’t have another Cosmonaut running interference.”

Matt smiles in acknowledgment.

“Well, that’s all right,” he says. “Volkov may have the whole Nova Solar System bristling with nukes and death rays and gods know what by the time the Bright Star Cultures—with or without the octopods—spread to it. If in the meantime things have turned out badly between us and the octopods, well, tough shit for us, but we’ll get some posthumous revenge. And if not, if we’re walking along holding their eight hands, there’ll be nothing to fight about. As the one Elizabeth and Delavar spoke to said, they’ll be just another species in the Second Sphere.”

“There are times,” says Elizabeth, ostentatiously making sure Susan is getting this and not just recording it, “when I don’t know whether to be more shocked at Matt’s cynicism or his naivety. I’m not interested in posthumous revenge, thank you very much! I am interested in the safety and happiness of our own people.” She glances at the saurs. “Of all our peoples. So much for the cynicism. What is naive is Matt’s remark that if all goes as the octopods say they hope, there’ll be nothing to fight about. Suppose Volkov succeeds, and Nova Terra is all geared up to fight an octopod invasion. Two things can happen. One is that some of the octopod travelers who
haven’t
been in contact with us—and we know there are other parts of the migration en route right now—emerge from the jump and blunder straight into Volkov’s defenses, which they have no reason to expect. The other is that we—the Bright Star Cultures, now including the octopods—spread there, jump by jump, just as our traders are spreading now.

“We make our final jump into the Nova Sol system, evade the defenses because we’re expecting them, and tell the Nova Terrans the good news: the long-feared aliens are now a part of our rich tapestry! They don’t want to take over the worlds, oh no! They just want to settle the underdeveloped parts of our biospheres! Do you have any
idea
how that will look, to the kind of paranoid militarist culture that Volkov will have built? Of course you do, Matt, you are not a complete fool.”

Zachary Gould coughs politely. “The Science Officer will please address her remarks to—”

“Sorry, Zack,” says Elizabeth. She stops glaring at Matt and looks around at the others. “They’ll have spent decades preparing for an octopod invasion—perhaps already, as they see it, fought one off—and when we turn up, we will look to them like collaborators with the aliens. The octopod invasion will be
us.
”

“This is indeed a problem,” says the orange-furred emissary of the octopods.

It’s here with two others, one black and the other multicolored. Their arrival, though prearranged, has been unnerving. The sight of an alien skiff emerging from a lightspeed jump right inside the
Return Visit’s
temporarily empty docking bay without the airlock’s having to be opened has given everyone on board a vivid impression of just how advanced the aliens are.

The three aliens are huddled at one end of the messroom, which has been used as a conference room. They cling to the edge of the table or the backs of chairs with some of their hands, and with others keep touching each other’s hands, and with yet others gesticulate. They keep changing position unpredictably and startlingly. Matt has no doubt that it’s only their calming pheromones that are keeping most of the people who are in the room, and especially the saurs, from climbing a few chairs or walls themselves.

“Fortunately,” says the black one, “we have a possible solution. We do not have the jump coordinates for any of the stars in the Second Sphere, other than the one you have come from and the one at the center.” It makes some agitated movements of three limbs. “The former, we have only recently calculated ourselves. The latter, we have as an item of legacy information. It is very common knowledge among us. Consequently we can jump from here to your Mingulay, and also from here to your Nova Terra. We suggest that most of us and you go to Mingulay, and some of us and you go directly to Nova Terra.”

“What good would that do?” asks Elizabeth. “Your other travelers will have already arrived by the time the Nova Terra expedition arrives.”

“That is true,” says the orange-furred one. “They will very probably be dead. That is unfortunate but cannot be helped. However, the expedition we propose would be armed, and cautious.”

“Ah,” says Matt, leaning forward. “You have weapons?”

“No,” says the alien. “Some plasma rifles.” It sketches a shrug with several of its shoulders. “But you have.”

Matt tries not to laugh. He can see the others doing the same.

“I don’t know that we’d get many volunteers for going straight to Nova Terra,” says Zack, manfully keeping a straight face. “That’s a two-hundred-something-year round trip. Most of the crews are expecting to go home and still see their folks, and even the few as don’t haven’t signed up for jumping forward a couple of lifetimes.”

“I’d go,” says Matt immediately. He glances at the two saurs. They both nod slowly: The two saurs have a lover in common, Bishlayan, but long partings are something they are used to.

“Maybe some of the other Cosmonauts, as well,” he adds.

“Not much of a crew,” says Zack, still making as if he takes the proposition seriously.

The aliens’ hands are busy with mutual blurry touch. They do that a lot, Matt has noticed, and he has a good idea why; it’s direct exchange of molecular-coded information—memories, perhaps even genes. Social intercourse, or sexual—with their mode of reproduction, perhaps there is no difference.

The rainbow-hued octopod flourishes a blossoming fuzzy hand, and inhales. “Please explain to us the problem about the crews going home.”

They explain.

“Ah,” wheezes the orange octopod. “We have a possible solution to that problem. Any of your people can live as long as the saurs and the Cosmonauts. Would this help?”

Elizabeth sat in the cockpit (or on the bridge—the terminology hadn’t quite been settled yet) of the
Return Visit
and scanned the viewscreens, which were much more useful than the windows. They showed three of the other ships, surrounded by a small cloud of the beautiful smooth skiffs of the octopods (or Multipliers, to use their own troubling term for themselves). A hundred kilometers away the
Investigator
hung in a lower orbit, moving slowly ahead of the other group. Around it were five Multiplier skiffs, apparently keeping pace. How the jump coordinates for the Nova Sol system had been transferred from the Multipliers’ drive to the
Investigator’s
she didn’t know; it had kept Matt, Gregor, and two of the octopods busy for several days.

In a few minutes the
Investigator
and its tiny convoy would be making a lightspeed jump of a hundred and three years, taking them to one year out from Nova Sol. “Defuse the situation, or defang the defenses,” Matt had said. “Hell, if Volkov is still alive I might even be able to
persuade
him.”

Even with most of the armaments from the other ships transferred to its arsenal, it still seemed pathetically inadequate for the task. On the other hand, it was hard to see how anything would be adequate, short of a massive military mission, which neither the humans nor the Multipliers were willing or yet able to mount. The ship had a crew of eight humans and two saurs, Salasso and Delavar. She did not underestimate the courage of any of them, but she would miss the saurs most.

The radio crackled. “
Investigator
to the fleet. Jumping in two minutes.”

“Gods be with you,” said Zack.

“Hopefully not.” It was Matt’s voice. “But thanks, Zack, I know what you mean.”

Gregor shifted in his seat, glancing around the screens. “I hope Susan’s getting all this—where is she, by the way?”

“Over on the
Explorer
,” said Elizabeth.

At that moment Susan’s voice came over the radio. “Uh, Gregor, Elizabeth, I’m sorry, I just couldn’t miss this chance, and I knew you wouldn’t—”

Elizabeth felt as if she’d fallen through ice. “
Where are you?
” She already knew; the voice had come on the open channel to the
Investigator.

“Jumping in one minute,” said Matt.

“Abort the jump!” Gregor shouted.

“You know I can’t do that,” said Matt’s voice, maddeningly calm.

“This has nothing to do with Matt,” said Susan. “I’m sorry, I love you, but I want to go.”

Elizabeth unclenched her teeth and grasped Gregor’s hand. “We both love you, Susan,” she managed to say. “And we’ll see you again. You can be sure of that, darling.”

She took another deep breath and spoke slowly, weighing and meaning every word: “Matt, we’re going to take the Multipliers’ offer. We’re going to live for a very long time, and we’re coming after you, and when we get you, we’re going to fucking kill you.”

“Good luck,” said Matt, as though he hadn’t heard.

“Good-bye,” said Susan.

“Okay, people,” said Matt. “Let’s jump.”

Bright Star Cultures

N
OVAKKAD, THE PRINCIPAL
city of a planet fifty light-years from Nova Babylonia, had always been a strange place. More than anywhere else Lydia had visited along her family’s trade route, it had struck her as not just different but foreign. Its people were either much darker or much paler than the standard Second Sphere swarthy melange. They wore tall hats of fur in winter and shallow wide-brimmed cones of straw on their heads in summer. Their priests investigated the nature of fire with crude spectroscopes; their philosophers worshiped geometry. Their accents were thick and various, and their dialect of Trade Latin had a way of mutating unpredictably. Claiming that their city was older than Nova Babylonia, they implausibly attributed certain gigantic prehuman and prehominid ruins in its vicinity to their ancestors. Their own buildings were peculiar, tall wedges with sharply sloped roofs curving to ornate overhanging scoops of eave, like tents of brick and tile. In other ways too the city had the aspect of an encampment, clustered along the shore of a freshwater lake the size of an inland sea at the edge of an endless plain on whose grass the Novakkadians raised vast herds of horses and cattle. On the far side of the lake the glaciers of a jagged mountain range replenished its deep cold waters, within which fish shoaled by the million, some growing to lengths of ten meters and weights of three tons. Hardwoods from the lower slopes of the far mountains were harvested by the gigants and floated across the lake in such quantities that from the sky they looked like mats.