Swallow the Sky: A Space Opera (7 page)

“Hey my friend, not too
deep” shouted Aiyana, but the huge creature simply hummed a song.

“Can we take the
pressure?” she asked.

Carson shrugged, then had
an idea. “Hey buggy, can we rig inertial dampening to generate a
counter-pressure?”

“I’m on it chief!”

Two hours later the buggy
announced that they were finally ascending. By now they were some thirty
kilometers out to sea. Unless Mitan Security’s capabilities were superior to
anything they had witnessed, it was safe to assume that they had lost the
trail. To their vast relief the Leviathan opened its mouth and spat them onto
the ocean surface.

“We play again?”

“Not today” replied
Aiyana “we leave now. Goodbye, blessings to you and your pod.”

“Blessings to you Aiyana
and your pod” the creature replied.

“How the hell does it
know…” Carson began, and then just laughed. After eight thousand years the
human race still could not fathom the minds of these huge gentle animals.

The buggy rose slowly
into the air. The dark cone of Kaimana came into view on the horizon but no
craft approached them.

“I should pilot” Aiyana announced.

“Hmm, I don’t know…”

“What do you mean ‘
I
don’t know’
? Hey spaceman, you may be the one swanning about the galaxy in
your interstellar pleasure boat but I’ve been hauling crates like this around
Mita for the last thirty years.”

“No offense buggy” she
added.

Carson held up his hands
“Okay, okay, you fly. Buggy, I’m giving Aiyana full dual control.”

She gleefully slapped her
hand on the flight console.

“Virtually all traffic
control is above Kaimana” she explained “We could try and blend in but I think
we’ll do better leaving from a remote area that isn’t monitored.

“Hey buggy” she yelled
“how fast can be go at sea level?”

“About Mach 3”

“Good enough” she said
and shot forward across the wine-dark sea.

Kaimana disappeared below
the horizon. After two hours they slowed to a halt. The craft began to gain
altitude until they emerged above the dark featureless plane of the planet’s
cloud layer. Overhead in the clear night sky the arch of the Milky Way
glittered with the promise of a million worlds.

“Time to get comfortable”
Aiyana said as they buckled into the twin couches. She initiated inertial
dampening and, after pausing to take one last look at the world beneath her,
hurled the little craft upwards towards the beckoning stars.

As soon as they were
clear of the immediate vicinity Carson sent an encoded message to the ship telling it to initiate power-up for interstellar flight. It was a risky maneuver that
required spinning the vessel’s shell of micro black holes almost to the level
where they folded space-time. Docking during spin-up was dangerous but it would
save precious time.

The return trip to the ship proved uneventful; Mita once again shrank to a brilliant speck as they approached the
borderlands of the system. When they were one million kilometers away Carson
sent another message.

“I want to try getting to
New Earth in a single jump. Can you do it?”

“Who are we running from
this time?” replied the ship. “Anyhow, the answer is maybe. I’ll start the
calculations.”

“So where is it?” Aiyana
said as she stared into the darkness.

“Buggy, can you magnify
the image of the ship?”

Something resembling a
giant drop of water zoomed into view.

“That’s the shell; it’s
distorting the starlight.”

At the center, huddled
against the tidal gravity, was the ship itself: an ungainly mass of cubes,
cylinders, and ducts that appeared more like a storage dump than an
interstellar spacecraft.

Aiyana looked closer. “Oh
God!” she cried, “there’s another vessel.”

Asima’s voice filled the
cabin.

“Carson, Aiyana, do not
try to board your starship. I am authorized under Section Eight of the Mitan
Defense Code to use all necessary force.”

“How the hell did she get
out here so fast? Besides, she’s bluffing. We’re their entire case against
Juro. They won’t do anything to endanger us.”

“Right” snarled Aiyana as
a bolt of thermal plasma tore past them.

The little vessel
accelerated.

“Careful! You’re going to
overshoot the ship.”

“
Who’s
driving? I
know where I’m going.”

Pursued by Asima’s
speedboat the buggy hurtled past the starship then circled round in a wide
loop.

“You can’t enter the
shell from this pole” Carson yelled “you have to go round to the other side.”

Aiyana said nothing. Totally
absorbed in steering, she sat motionless, eyes closed, her hand clamped to the
control console as she absorbed torrents of data. They streaked towards the
south pole of the ship, still accelerating.

“For God’s sake!”

“
Shut up
Carson
”

Traveling at over a
thousand kilometers a second the buggy grazed the ship with fifty meters to spare. The massive gravity gradient from the shell’s micro black holes gripped the
little vessel as it shot past and pulled it round in an impossibly tight arc. Moments
later they dropped through the opening in the north pole screaming with deceleration.
Asima’s speedboat, taking a more conservative trajectory, whipped past without
slowing. They would be gone by the time she could turn around.

Carson had the hatch open
before they hit the landing dock.

“Where did you learn to
fly like that?” the ship asked as he dived out.

Moments later Aiyana
launched herself through the opening.

“Oh, hello, who are you?”

“To hell with socializing”
Carson shouted. “Get us out of here.”

The song of the Alcubierre
drive rose an octave; the whirlpool of collapsed matter spun ever faster. Local
space-time twisted into a Lorentzian manifold while beyond the hull the stars
vanished. Now the vessel was as alone as it was possible to be, enclosed in its
own private cosmos. The shape of the tiny universe convulsed again. Then, like
an orange seed squeezed between the fingers of a god, the starship shot across
the heavens.

Outside the windows of
Juro’s office the city glowed beneath the evening sky. The senior elder of clan
Aniko was in a fine mood as he poured two glasses of brandy. He held one glass
up to his face and breathed deeply. The Colombard grape harvest was not good
this year but it was of no great import, there would be better vintages. One
had to take the long view. He shuffled over to his visitor.

“So he’s on his way”

“Though hardly in the way
we planned” replied Commissioner Zhou taking a glass.

“Yesterday he spent hours
investigating the Oskinova system, an agrarian cooperative in a filament nebula
some twenty thousand light years from here. It would be unfortunate to lose
him.”

“Impossible, it’s a
feint. Shin’s model of Carson’s personality shows a ninety-four percent
probability that he will head directly to New Earth.”

“Of course” he added
“there is the added complication of the girl. What a diligent public servant is
Officer Asima! Who would have imagined that she would find Aiyana?”

“Yes” said Zhou “honesty
and dedication amongst my junior staff are an occupational hazard. Still, I
think we improvised well. He’s convinced that he’s one step ahead of you.”

Juro chuckled
asthmatically at the thought.

“An adversary is easily
manipulated when he believes he has out-smarted you. Carson thinks he will be
clearing his name and finding ancient treasure. We could not ask for better
motivation.”

Zhou nodded. “Ironically,
Aiyana should be an asset to his search. I’ve been checking her file – she’s a
highly intelligent and resourceful individual. I’m surprised you hadn’t
promoted her.”

Juro sniffed. “She’s a
young woman. We don’t do things that way in the clan.”

Zhou looked at him for a
long time without speaking.

Finally she said “There’s
no chance that Carson knows what you’re really looking for, is there?”

Juro waved his glass in
dismissal.

“None – he’s too in love
with antiques. And when he succeeds, it will not matter.”

Nothing will matter,
nothing in the whole damn galaxy.

Aiyana loved the ship. Her one experience of interstellar travel had been a nine hour hop to the Aniko black hole foundry as
it continued its deceleration through Mita’s Oort Cloud, and that trip had been
on a transport designed for sub light-year flights. Carson’s vessel was
something completely different.

She had always thought of
a starship as a utilitarian machine – simply a mechanism for carrying people
and equipment from one place to another. It had never occurred to her that a
spacecraft could be an expression of an individual’s personality.

They were floating in the
center of a spacious cube, about ten meters across, which had once accommodated
a crew of five. Originally the room had been the functional hub for the entire
vessel Carson explained, but he had removed most of the control equipment when
he converted the ship to solo use. Now the synthetic mind did most of the
crew’s work.

“So the color scheme… you
chose it yourself?”

“Do you like it? I wanted
something cheerful.”

Mercifully the vivid
bulkheads were obscured by centuries of accumulated antique hunting. In the
center was a disassembled portable fusion reactor, one of his latest
acquisitions.

“I got it from a
monastery carved into a mountaintop on Dehini e, an ice ball that only a monk
could love.”

The reactor had warmed
the stone halls for five hundred years but when Carson came on the scene the
brothers were spending more time performing maintenance than sacred rituals.

“God knows where they
originally found it. By the time we finished negotiations they had a miniature
Higgs engine and I had another antique.”

The monks certainly
needed something reliable. The monastery was the only inhabited settlement in
the Dehini system, a location that must have been chosen more for its view than
any practical consideration. It was easy to see why; the nighttime sky blazed
with the nebulous remnants of an ancient supernova.

So pleased were the
brothers with their new power system they held a special service to beseech
their favorite deity, Narayina the Hidden, to bestow her favor upon Carson’s
ventures.

“Not that it’s done much
good” he said.

“And where did you get
this
?”
They were floating in front of a hypnotically patterned mandala.

“Gandria in the Perseus
Arm – it’s a red dwarf system but it still manages to support a pretty diverse
ecosystem. The locals have lapsed into a prehistoric culture although they seem
happy enough.”

Aiyana peered closely.

“What’s it made of?”

“Human hair – it’s
amazing but all the color is natural. A couple of thousand years ago they
spliced DNA from some local exotic birds into their own genome – I doubt the
Covenant Council would approve – and now you have people walking around with
every hair color imaginable.

“Creating the mandalas is
highly ritualized. Each weaver first goes through a purification ceremony where
they bathe, recite prayers and burn incense, and then they work only between midnight and dawn. It’s a matriarchal society – only fertile women are allowed to make the
tapestries – but all the hair comes from the men. There’s a little bit of me in
it.”

Carson drifted up to
point to a dark outline surrounding a cascade of chrome yellow fractals.

“That’s my hair. The only
way they’d let me barter for a tapestry was to become a member of a tribe. I
lived with them for two years before my hair was long enough for the initiation
ceremony.”

“Wow!” Aiyana moved back
to admire the hypnotic patterns.

“So much work, so much
hair! Was it worth it?”

“Oh yes. As far as I know
I have the only legal Gandrian tapestry. There are a few stolen ones out there
but they’re worth only a fraction of their real value without a proper
provenance.”

“A proven-what?”

“An antique’s life
history – where it came from, proof that it’s not a forgery, and how the owner
came into possession. The universe is teeming with fake antiques, stolen
antiques, and just plain old rubbish. There’s no point trying to sell high-end
pieces without a provenance.”

Even if you have to
invent it
Carson added to himself.

“So your hair is your
provenance?”

“It helps, but I also
recorded my entire initiation ceremony with the tribe.”

“Oh, I’d love to see
that.”

“I have some images” the ship chimed in.

“Another time” Carson said hastily “but I will show you this.”

He pulled at the neck of
his jump suit. Starting on his shoulder, Aiyana could see a dark pattern of
overlapping rings emerging through his skin’s fading melanogenesis.

“During the initiation
each female member of the tribe tattooed a circle on my skin. The size of the
circle denotes her seniority.”

“That is so cool! Hey,
did you ever see
my
tattoos?” Aiyana said as she unfastened her jump
suit.

Carson sighed; persuading
his new crewmate to wear clothes had been a major challenge. Only the threat of
confinement on the ship when they reached New Earth had persuaded her to give
it a try. Ironically, he often went naked himself while onboard, but with the
two of them the distraction would have been overwhelming. This was especially
true given that Aiyana’s birthday suit, deprived of proper care and nutriment,
was fading away to reveal smooth, honey-colored flesh. Now he swallowed hard
and feigned casual interest as she displayed the design snaking down her torso.

“Did she have them?”
Aiyana asked as she refastened her suit.

“Who? Oh, as a matter of
fact, no. I guess they thought it wasn’t necessary.”

“I’m going to take a
break in the garden.” Suddenly she sounded tired.

“Sure – I need to go over
supplies with the ship.”

Carson fretted as he
glided through the access tube to the main storage unit. The subject of the
replicant had been stepped around since they departed four days ago. He hoped
that Aiyana raising it now was a healthy development, but he would let her set
the pace.

The storage module was
the neatest place on the ship. It mattered little if the rest of the interior could
have been the aftermath of an explosion in an antiques warehouse but supplies
were literally the stuff of life. Carson always tried to keep the ship well stocked in anticipation of unexpected departures – the flight from the Mita system
was not his first panicked escape. His goal was to have enough onboard to last
him two years. If a journey took longer than that he would, with reluctance,
hibernate – a debilitating process that left him feeling ill for weeks. Regardless,
even with the best recycling equipment – and Carson did not have the best –
basic nutriment was still required.

“Once we get to New Earth
I want you to stock up” he told the ship.

“And this time, get three
quotes for God’s sake.”

“Am I shopping for one or
two?”

Carson swore he could
hear a leer in the machine’s voice but it was a good question. For the first
time in many decades his future was uncertain. His vague plan was to cooperate
Juro’s renegade historian Kalidas and after a few days hanky panky garner
enough evidence to finish off the Old Man. If that worked out then he could
start a new mail run and revert to what passed for regular life.

He did not like to think
about the alternative, that the whole venture would blow up in his face. If
that happened they would have to run for it. That would be a long voyage indeed.

Even if he was successful
what was Aiyana going to do? She would not be able to stay on New Earth without
him – the immigration laws were too strict. She could get a job in another part
of the system or she might, despite her denials, want to return to Mita. If she
did, Carson could hardly refuse to take her.

“You’d better make it
for two.”

“Excellent!”

Not only did Aiyana love
the ship, the ship loved Aiyana; after so many decades it was delighted to
finally meet someone new. Her innocence about the world outside Mita and her
thirst for knowledge gave the machine an opportunity to show off its vast
stores of information. And when they tired of exploring the databanks, Carson
suspected they gossiped about him.

He finished reviewing the
procurement list and went to see how Aiyana was doing.

The conservatory was her
favorite part of the vessel. There was no practical need for it – the
environmental systems took good care of the atmosphere – but Carson had built
it to help preserve his sanity during the total isolation of long voyages.

He pushed his way through
an environmental isolating field into the fragrant envelope of moisture and
warmth. Located away from the center of the ship to enable the plants to feel
the modest gravitational tug of the shell, the conservatory was a kaleidoscope
of orchids, jasmines, mimosas, bougainvillea and countless other tropical
flowers. No wonder Aiyana so enjoyed coming here – the sultry atmosphere was
virtually identical to her home world.

She was stretched out on
a miniscule patch of grass staring up at the canopy of hibiscus, naked again,
but this was no time to scold her. She appeared to have been crying. Carson
knelt down by her feet.

“Hey, how are you doing?”
he asked, gently wiggling a big toe.

She gave him a solemn
smile. He guessed how she must be feeling. Seven days ago she had been a
respected engineer with a life that had direction and purpose, and now she had
been wrenched out of that world, roots and all.

Oh what the hell.
He
peeled of his jumpsuit and lay on his back besides her, putting her slender
body out of his direct line of sight. The cool grass felt wonderful against his
bare skin. A tiny golden butterfly detached itself from the blossoms and
fluttered down to settle on the tip of Aiyana’s nose.

“Hey!” she yelled, more
amused than frightened.

Carson held out a finger
and the little creature obligingly jumped on.

“Take a closer look” he
said, holding it in front of her eyes.

“Good God – it’s
artificial!”

“That’s right. I keep a
dozen of them here in the conservatory for pollination. They’re made by an old
friend of mine named Tallis, she lives on New Earth so you may get to meet her
– you would definitely find her interesting.”

The diminutive machine
flapped away in search of a recharging station for its batteries.

“How are the studies
going?”

They had agreed that they
would leverage Aiyana’s technical expertise and pass her off as a historian
specializing in ancient spacecraft. As she observed, after some of the junk she
had been pushing around the Mita system for the last thirty years it wasn’t
going to be much of a stretch. However, fluency in the two dominant colonial
languages, English and Mandarin, was going to be essential.

“It’s going great” she
said starting to perk up. “Listen to this:
bǎi huā qífàng
!”

“A hundred blooms – we’ve
already got them” laughed Carson waving at the arch of flowers.

Aiyana was using Okrand
technology to accelerate her learning. The subject was placed into an isolated,
near-hypnotic state and completely immersed in the target language. Elaborate
neural monitoring controlled the pace and content of the lessons.

“How about Ancient
English?”

“Every day in every
way!”

This time they both
laughed. “So,” Aiyana asked, “how many languages do you know?”

“I have no idea”

“Oh stop being so modest”

“No, I’m serious. I’ve
learned so many over the centuries that until someone speaks to me I don’t know
whether I’ll be able to answer.”

“And I thought I was
doing well with two. Hey, I read this today:

“We choose to go to
the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but
because they are hard.”

“Do you know who that
was? It was an ancient called Kennedy, or JFK, or John Fitzgerald, the Book is
a bit vague. He was the senior elder of Clan America announcing the first
journey to Luna. Guess how they did it? They burnt flammable liquids in a metal
chamber and then channeled the force of the combustion to create reactive
thrust.
And they traveled in an environment module on top of the fuel tanks!
God, that took guts.”

“That it did” said Carson
“they called their vessel
Saturn
, although no-one is sure why. There’s
an image of the landing on page 246 of the Book. Although if you really want to
learn about ancient history you should start going through the Teng
recordings.”

“Yes I have!” she cried
flipping onto her side to present Carson with a distracting view.

“I never knew – we hardly
touched the subject in school.”

“That drives historians
crazy – most people today think the Book is our sole source of knowledge about
prehistoric times but Teng got far more, even if it was pretty haphazard”

“Right, I mean, there’s
so much.”

“Well the ship does have the complete archive. According to Teng’s journal he filled every spare
recording medium they had. He just sat down with his fellow survivors and said
‘tell me everything you know’.”

“I can believe it. I was
just searching for the stuff on space travel but some of the other material –
wow!”

“He was trying to
maintain as much of the human race’s collective memory as possible. Many people
say we owe our survival almost as much to him as we do to Cissokho. After the
Techs stole the Yongding there was so little knowledge left.”

“May our curses find
them” Aiyana said reflexibly. She lowered her eyes as she thought about the
historic betrayal.

“Do you think we
will
ever find them?” she asked, looking at Carson again.