Quofum (16 page)

“No. I can identify no stellar configuration in any direction that corresponds to the Shapley Center. Furthermore, my external sensors detect none of the extreme radiation that would be expected were we anywhere in that vicinity.”

Bad enough, Araza thought as he fought back rising panic, to have misplaced the Commonwealth. But to lose track of the galactic center meant…

“Extend sensor range to maximum. Attempt correlation of present position using all available charts.” The ship needed to find a recognizable reference point, he knew. Just one would be sufficient. No matter where they were or how they had come to find themselves here, a single identifiable waypoint that the navigation program could lock on to would be enough to allow them to find their way back into familiar stellar territory. The fact that it was taking the AI long seconds to respond was not encouraging. When the seconds stretched into minutes, Araza found himself on the verge of despair.

Where in the name of O’Morion’s matrix
were
they?

“Correlation failure.” The ship’s voice was maddeningly impassive. “I can locate nothing familiar. Not only within our galaxy, but without and beyond. There is no correlation. I regret to confess that for the first time since my consciousness was activated, I am lost.”

Lost. As injurious a four-letter word as could be imagined, especially under present circumstances. It was absurd. It was crazy. The advanced AIs that directed and controlled KK-drive starships did not, could not, become lost. Within their complex electronic guts were buried multiple levels of backup. One recognizable reference point was all they needed to navigate by. Just
one.
Surely, surely, there had to be an identifiable star, or nebula, or other stellar phenomenon within range of its preceptors. He refused to accept the explanation. Or confession. He wracked his brain.

A thought. A possible out. Even a supposedly infallible AI could theoretically suffer from a momentary blackout. “If you cannot locate a standard reference point, search for one that is nonstandard. What about intercepting communications? Try a space-minus scan.”

When the response came back in seconds, a little of the fear that had begun to seep into him receded.

“I have detected multiple strata of stressed spectrum that indicate the presence of sentient communication.”

Araza was much relieved. Such encrypted transmissions could not be intercepted and read, he knew, but their mere presence was reassuring. “Can you approximate volume?” This far out of the Commonwealth, space-minus resonance would likely be reduced to a few dozen energy strings. While they could not be understood, they could be traced. Doing so might lead the
Dampier
home along a different route than the one it had taken on its outbound journey, but that didn’t matter. He was in no hurry.

“Yes,” the ship responded. “One moment, please.” Reassured, Araza did not begrudge the vessel the inordinate amount of time it was taking to formulate its replies. “I have recorded approximately six million, two hundred thousand, four hundred five individual strings. This is preliminary. I am still compiling.” The AI promptly went silent again.

Insane. Araza was beginning to think that was the most likely explanation for what had happened. The ship’s AI had gone mad. That did not explain the explosively luminescent astral display outside the forward port, but it went a long way toward illuminating the
Dampier
’s other responses. With an effort, he held his anger in check.

“That is something like ten times the number of space-minus communications strings one would expect to find in the immediate stellar neighborhood of Earth or Hivehom. It is infinitely more than one would expect to encounter anywhere within the Commonwealth, much less in the vicinity of an outlying outarm world like Quofum.”

“I concur. The logical conclusion, therefore, is that we are no longer in the vicinity of the Quofumian system, or Earth or Hivehom, or the Commonwealth.”

Gritting his teeth, the Qwarm hissed out the words: “Then—where—are—we?”

“I don’t know,” the ship replied with maddening and unvarying matter-of-factness. “I told you: I am lost.”

“But you just stated that you can detect, or think you can detect, more than six million lines of space-minus communications.”

“Yes. I have run every one of them through my system. Not one is recognizable.”

Araza’s voice was now as flat as that of the AI. “Track one. Any one. The nearest. Integrate it as a temporary waypoint. Take us there.” If the AI could not find a way home from their present position, surely it could do so from the immediate vicinity of a communicative hub.

“Complying.”

Full changeover, at least, proceeded normally. Even the slight nausea he experienced was welcome as an indication of normality. When the ship emerged back into normal space a day later, Araza forced himself to hold his emotions in check. It was just as well.

They were still lost. The Commonwealth was still absent from the bowl of heaven. Quofum was still missing.

Something else had taken its place, however.

The new star system was as unfamiliar as the galactic surrounds into which the ship had emerged. It was centered on a binary: a normal Sol-type star that was accompanied by a red dwarf companion. Orbiting around the binary in surprisingly stable trajectories were five closely spaced worlds. The innermost was a blackened charred cinder that tracked too close to the larger star to support life. The outermost was an exquisitely striped triple-ringed gas giant.

The inner trio were synthetic.

Dark surfaces of unknown material soaked up the light and energy of both stars. Gaps of oceanic proportions showed where star-going craft of unimaginable proportions entered and departed. Using its preceptors to zoom in on the outermost artificial globe and peer through one such gap, the ship’s AI revealed that within the center of the incredible construct was a miniature, bright yellow thermonuclear glow: an artificial sun. It ought to have been too small to maintain its self-sustaining internal reaction. It defied known physics.

Known physics. Confronted with revelation after revelation, with engineering on a scale beyond dreams, Araza slumped into the ship’s command chair. Where
was
he?

Quofum. The planet that only occasionally appeared on roving astronomical sensors. The world that seemed to wink in and out of existence. Where did it go when it was not detectable? Did it reside here, in this vast stellar otherness? He had just come from there. And if it was still there, visible and visitable on the edge of the Commonwealth, then did that mean it was no longer here? Wherever “here” was? Or could it exist in two planes of existence at the same time?

He thought furiously. If Quofum was not here now, then maybe it was presently near home, meaning the Commonwealth. In its place he was now here, perhaps where it ought to be. Where was this “wherever” where Quofum normally floated, out of sight and perception of Commonwealth astronomers? Though he was no polymath, Araza considered himself to be a reasonably well-read and well-informed citizen. To the best of his knowledge and experience, no known constructs came close to approaching the scale of the science and engineering he was presently seeing.

Under magnification, lambent lines of force could be seen linking the three artificial worlds. Others lanced out into emptiness, to vanish beyond range of even the ship’s deep-space preceptors. Directing the
Dampier
to move closer to one such glistening filament, he saw that it resolved itself into a strand of shimmering plasma. Energy readings of the material of which it was composed were off the ship’s charts. Occasionally, glowing green ovoids shot through the center of the strand at impossible speeds, luminous emerald corpuscles in an electric-bright capillary.

His presence so close to the plasma filament must have been observed. A ship approached his. At least, he assumed it was a ship. So did the
Dampier
’s AI, though it was unable to identify the sudden solid manifestation. Another lacking reference point, a dazed Araza told himself. Eyeing the vessel’s advance, he started to laugh. The craft was approximately half the size of Earth’s moon. He knew it had to be a vessel because his own ship’s AI told him so. The amount of power necessary to move such an immense artificial mass was beyond his comprehension. The thought that it might be able to generate energy enough to achieve changeover suggested the ability to manipulate quantities of energy and matter that were beyond his scales of value.

Of course, such manipulation was likely child’s play for beings who could construct artificial worlds around artificial mini-stars to power them. No, he was most definitely not in the Commonwealth anymore, nor way out on its fringes in the vicinity of a most peculiar world called Quofum. He had no idea where he was. In that, he was one with his ship’s AI. That artificial mind had at least one easily identifiable advantage over his, Araza reflected. It was not likely to go mad.

“Ship! Get away! Pick a destination, any destination! Any waypoint! Just get away from here!”

“Complying.”

The colossal craft of unknown origin loomed close, blocking out most of the starfield. Time passed with infuriating sluggishness, like honey dripping from a ladle. Then there was a physical wrench, a gastrointestinal follow-up, and his ship entered changeover.

When it emerged, the giant vessel was nowhere to be seen. Araza breathed a sigh of relief. He had not realized how frightened he had been. Frightened! Him, Salvador Araza, a second-degree Qwarm assassin, frightened. It was scarce to be believed.

“Where are we?” he whispered, wondering even as he heard his own words why he was whispering.

“I don’t know,” the AI informed him pleasantly.

Araza was neither surprised nor upset. This time he was only numb.

Preceptors showed the triple star system on which the ship had randomly keyed. Light from two of the stars was nearly overwhelmed by the unimaginably bright disc of the third, an immense red giant whose diameter was on the order of Betelgeuse. Unsurprisingly, the system was devoid of planets. In response to Araza’s panicked command, the AI had keyed on the brightest system within range of its preceptors. There was no life here, no habitable worlds natural or artificial, no impossibly gigantic starships to dwarf him into insignificance.

He forced himself to eat. A few hastily warmed packets, a small meal. And to drink. When he returned to the bridge and settled once more into the command chair, he discovered that his hands were shaking slightly. He regarded this wholly novel and unprecedented neural response with the same detachment as a scientist studying a new alien life-form.

Scientist. What he would not have given at that moment to hear the voices and see the faces of the researchers he had left behind. Of the two men and one woman he had not killed. But they were on Quofum. And search as it might, the ship’s AI could not locate Quofum. That it was here, somewhere in this wherever, Araza was unaccountably certain. But its position had only been plotted from within the Commonwealth. To find it, the ship’s navigation system would need the stars of the Commonwealth as reference points. As Araza reviewed his options he sank deeper and deeper into a gathering, deepening depression that threatened to swallow him entirely and drown him in darkness.

“Ship. Take us back to where we just were.” He would deal with artificial worlds and moon-sized starships. He had no choice.

“I cannot.” As ever, the AI’s voice was steady and unvarying. “My reference points for performing the necessary calculations are gone.”

Araza’s voice rose to a scream. The emphasis was wasted. Volume had no effect on the AI. “What do you mean the reference points are gone? Just go back to where we just were! Run a reverse route!”

“I cannot.” The ship was very apologetic. “The reference points for performing the necessary…”

Araza sank back into the command chair, not listening to the rest of the AI’s generic and unforgiving monotone. If the ship could not get back to where it just was, then it could not possibly have any chance of finding Quofum again. And if it could not find Quofum again…

Lost indeed.

The ship drifted, holding position in space, patiently awaiting its sole passenger’s next command. Outside, an immense star and two much smaller companions blazed. Within the tiny composite speck of atmosphere-holding matter nearby, a single organic intelligence emitted minuscule mouth noises while generating liquid heavy with dissolved sodium chloride from its ocular orbits. This went on for quite some time. Then the being in question began to scream again. This time he did not stop.

There was no one around to hear.

11

They waited out the rest of the day in camp. Haviti chose to cling to the possibility that Araza might have second thoughts about abandoning them and would return, if only to kill them one by one. At least that would give them a chance to fight back and maybe regain control of the shuttle and thus a means of leaving Quofum. She knew it was an absurd thought, an irrational notion. In marooning them, Araza had murdered them as effectively as if he had lined them up against a wall and shot each of them through the head. Come morning she had abandoned the halfhearted hope as thoroughly as the covert Qwarm had abandoned them.

They would not die immediately. As long as they kept up the camp’s infrastructure they would not die for a long time. The water purification system would keep them hydrated and its food synthesizer and preparation apparatus would provide them with nourishment. Sanity, she reflected as she strolled listlessly toward the dining area and lounge in search of an undesired but necessary breakfast, would be of greater concern than sustenance.

While waiting out the long night she had tried hard not to think of Esra Tellenberg, and failed. She recalled his many kind words, his common sense, his vibrant intellectual curiosity. Most of all she found herself remembering that to which she had previously paid the least attention. Little touches, a sly turn of phrase, the way she had sometimes caught him looking at her when he thought she was unaware of the attention. It occurred to her now that his interest in her might have been something more than merely that of a respectful fellow researcher.

If he felt that way, he had never expressed such feelings to her. Maybe he had been waiting for the right moment, and that moment had never come. Maybe his occasional comments, sometimes witty, sometimes flat, had been a cover for truer, deeper feelings. Maybe he had held off expressing himself in hopes of receiving some kind of encouraging sign from her. She wished she could ask him. She would never know, now. Esra Tellenberg was dead. As dead as the specimens the team had left on the boat. Swallowing hard, her throat all of a sudden atypically dry, she lengthened her stride. In the long run it didn’t really matter. They were all dead.

Her surviving companions were already in the dining area. The look on N’kosi’s face was distant and preoccupied. Though their fixed exoskeletons rendered all thranx more or less incapable of facial expression, Valnadireb’s slumping stance and the perceptible droop of his antennae were indication enough that he shared his colleague’s fatalistic ennui.

She knew she ought to be feeling the same. Inescapable depression had been the rule all yesterday afternoon and on through the night. But now, as she regarded her surviving companions, she felt her mind-set changing. Standing in the dining area, recently unpacked and activated equipment humming efficiently around her, it suddenly seemed gauche to be thinking only of death. She forced confidence into her voice.

“Mosi, how are you coming with the micropreps?”

Waiting for the machine in front of him to finish filling a cup with tea, her fellow xenologist turned to frown at her. “The micropreps? Tiare…” His voice trailed away as he struggled to find appropriate words to articulate his thoughts. “We’re marooned here. Esra is dead, the shuttle is gone, the ship is gone, and we will never get off this world because as soon as the ship is discovered back home, everyone will assume we’re already somewhere here, dead or alive, and no one will bother to come looking for us here.”

Bustling past him, she started punching her breakfast request into the food preparation unit. “Then we’ll have plenty of time to complete our work.”

A hand reached over to gently touch her arm. Its four digits were as hard and slick as plastic, two of them serving the function of opposable thumbs. Turning to her right, she looked down into Valnadireb’s jewel-like, red-banded, golden compound eyes.

“I believe I divine your intent, Tiare. It is to be commended. I will do my best to do likewise.”

Picking up his cup and its steaming contents, N’kosi added sweetener. “What are you two mumbling about?”

Haviti had a moment before her breakfast was due to appear. “Okay, so we’re trapped here. Like the ancient shipwrecked sailors of Earth’s seas. We can go fetal and become mentally and physically comatose—or we can fight it. Stay active, immerse ourselves in our work, act like humanx.”

N’kosi sipped morosely at his tea. “That might keep us alive awhile longer. It won’t get us rescued.”

“You’re right, the odds aren’t exactly the best,” she agreed. “But if something happens to us our work will live on. And maybe one day a follow-up expedition will cross the camp’s beacon, land here, and find months, years, maybe even decades’ worth of important research already completed, catalogued, and stored, just waiting to be uploaded.”

“‘Decades.’” N’kosi repeated the word as if it was a particularly evil curse. “Do you really think we can survive here for decades? We’ve been here for about a week and nearly found ourselves overrun by the natives. A lapse in judgment, a failure of Security, and the spikers or the hardshells are likely to pick us off. If not them, then some local parasite, or predator, or bad weather, or contracted illness.”

She met his gaze evenly. “There are still three of us, Mosi. Three healthy, experienced, field-savvy researchers. We have a skimmer and the boat available for local transport and study. We have ample supplies, purifiers and synthesizers, multiple regenerative power, and secure living quarters. Not to mention whatever we can scavenge from our surroundings. As long as we watch our step and look out for each other there’s no reason why we can’t last for a long, long time. Who knows? Despite what that bastard Qwarm thinks, maybe even until a second contact expedition arrives, even if it takes years and, yes, decades for Science Central to decide to mount one. Meanwhile it would be a waste of a great scientific opportunity if we chose to spend all that time sitting around camp, doing nothing, and waiting to die.”

Valnadireb gestured assent. “We have much work to do. Specimens to prepare, recordings to index, camp defenses to strengthen. However, I will not commence such work of my own until one other pressing matter has first been attended to.”

She eyed the thranx xenologist uncertainly. “What pressing matter?”

He responded with the soft whistling that was an unmistakable indication of thranx amusement. “Breakfast, of course.”

Initial concerns aside and despite having to pause periodically to raise the dejected N’kosi’s lagging spirits, the days at the camp gradually fell into a routine that at least initially was comforting in its repetitiveness. It certainly was productive. Sending out such a small team demanded that it be comprised of generalists. Though each of the xenologists had their favored specialty, their expertise necessarily overlapped.

So while N’kosi preferred observing his faunal specimens through an assortment of magnification devices, he was not above helping Valnadireb sort out the thranx’s exploding collection of botanicals. Similarly, Valnadireb spent time assisting Haviti in trying to bring some order (and Orders) to the continually expanding list of large animals. They all shared in trying to come up with new ways to contact the local sentients.

Where they threatened to have trouble was with the infrastructure of the camp itself. With the exception of the scientific apparatus, maintenance and upkeep had been the responsibility of Boylan and Araza. With one dead and the other fled, the three scientists spent a good deal of time away from science while devoting themselves to such mundane tasks as making certain the automated waste and recycling gear continued to operate in the efficient self-sanitizing manner promised by its assorted warranties. Equal if not more time was allotted to daily checking and rechecking of the separate systems that supplied the camp with fresh water, scrubbed air, cooled or heated internal atmosphere, food, and all the other components necessary to maintaining a minimal standard of semicivilized living.

While each system was designed to be as self-sustaining as possible, periodic checks were instituted to expose the slightest weak spot. It was critical that minor defects be detected as soon as they occurred. If allowed to become significant, none of the three xenologists possessed the knowledge or ability to fix them.

On the other hand, Haviti reflected one morning as she knelt on the roof of the living quarters module sealing a small leak in one of the condensation collectors, they had plenty of time to get better at such tasks.

Despite the drudgery imposed by having to devote time every day to ensure the continued functioning of the camp’s life-support systems, new discoveries were made with giddy frequency. As scientists they found it terribly frustrating to be unable to share their findings with the rest of the Commonwealth and especially with their peers. Someday, Haviti ruminated as she carefully slid yet another tray of unique Quofumian samples into vacuum storage, another expedition would find what she and her friends left behind. The newcomers would marvel at the range of discoveries, at the precision with which they had been documented and logged, and at the skill with which they had been preserved. Her reputation and that of Valnadireb and Moselstrom N’kosi would be ensured.

Better posthumously, she reflected, than not at all.

As she climbed down from the roof, something large enough to cast a sizable shadow momentarily blocked out the sun. Twisting around, she peered upward, relying on the photosensitive lens of her work visor to automatically protect her from the sudden surge in sunlight.

A gravent was passing overhead. N’kosi had named the creature less than a week ago. Another treetop-feeding glider, the eminent gray had a gaping mouth and multiple, charcoal-hued wings. Despite its impressive wingspan, its foamlike internal skeleton allowed it to soar effortlessly on the slightest of breezes. Dissecting a dead one, she and Valnadireb had discovered its unique internal structure; semirigid despite the absence of bones, tendons, or ligaments. Young gravents were neither born live nor hatched from eggs and did not spring from spores or seeds. Extruded from a special organ located on the underside of the adults, they unfolded their wings and took to the pink skies of their inimitable homeworld like so much drifting paste.

The soaring gravents were only one of thousands of unique and frequently unclassifiable life-forms that she and her companions had encountered in the months since Tellenberg’s death and the Qwarm Araza’s departure. From a taxonomic standpoint they could hardly keep up with the new Orders, much less classify and give names to every new plant and animal. To even begin to accomplish what was necessary on a world as diverse as Quofum would require the presence of not three but three thousand full-time xenologists.

Initially it was hard to tell which of the trio threw themselves into the necessary and beckoning scientific work with the most enthusiasm. Freed from the need to think about rescue once they had accepted that as a remote possibility, and also to preserve their sanity, they focused on their efforts with an enthusiasm that for a time was refreshing. As days became weeks and as weeks ran into months, this initial fervor faded. They still did their research, rising every morning to begin work in the lab module. But despite intermittent efforts at celebration or to recognize Commonwealth holidays, none of them could avoid the inevitable melancholy that had settled over the camp.

Even the communal meals to which they had hewed religiously for several months had been abandoned in favor of taking individual nourishment. Passing in the corridors, they hardly bothered to acknowledge one another’s presence. In lieu of civilized conversation a grunt was now sufficient, or the flick of an eye. Information was still exchanged verbally, but earlier sociability had gradually been replaced by a lackluster courtesy. There simply seemed no reason to spend time engaged in idle chitchat.

As the only two humans on the planet, it was inevitable that Haviti and N’kosi would enter into a relationship. It lasted awhile, provided a diversion, and then did not so much break up as simply perish of its own accord, guilty of the sin of repetition. There was no shouting involved, no accusations, no yelling and screaming. Given their present circumstances, such typical remonstrations would have seemed childish as well as futile. She and the other xenologist remained close friends, if no longer intimate ones.

For a while it left poor Valnadireb lonelier than ever, though not jealous, of course. He took to making unaccompanied collecting excursions into the forest that surrounded the camp. Despite carrying a communit and sidearm, these solo expeditions were inherently dangerous. On one such outing he was attacked by what recordings suggested was a slow-moving carnivore but which on more detailed analysis turned out to be a predatory mobile plant. It would have cost the thranx a foothand had not N’kosi and Haviti worked tirelessly in tandem with the camp medunit to stanch the flow of blood and see the severed limb properly reattached. After that, a camp rule was established that no one would work outside the perimeter alone. Like many such rules, it was soon broken and forgotten.

One also had to take extra care while working on or conducting observations from the roof, Haviti reflected as she reentered the living quarters module. Not all indigenous fliers were as inoffensive as the gravent. The atmosphere of Quofum was as filled with predators as was its surface. Her alarm had remained silent while she had been carrying out the necessary maintenance work, however. Though huge, the gravent had posed no threat. It boasted neither fang nor claw and, despite its wingspan, weighed less than she did. Had it come too close, she could have pushed it away easily with one hand.

The three survivors were drifting apart. Knowing that, realizing that, did not make the problem any easier to solve. Perhaps it should not be looked at as a problem, she told herself as she strode into the food prep area to get something cold to drink. Which was safer: seeing less and less of each other, or forcing contact for purposes of sham socialization that might inadvertently lead to acrimony and conflict? They spoke with one another when they wanted to, shared knowledge and new discoveries when they had to, went their separate ways when they grew bored or tired of each other’s company.