There was no particular point where a mark had been crossed, no precise hour or moment when they could confidently tap ceremonial bulbs of bright liquor against one another, crystal ringing in warm hands as they congratulated themselves for breaching a barrier and entering an entirely new realm. Even the ship’s AI held no consistent opinion about when they had reached the Inkwell—and that from a stubborn entity with views on every imaginable subject. They were still months removed from the nebula, slicing across seemingly empty space, when their maneuvering rockets began firing every few minutes. Stripped of every gram of excess mass, the streakship had been left with more grace than armor. Smoke-sized particles of dust could be absorbed by the hyperfiber prow, but only for a time. Lasers were used to erode or shove aside anything larger than a grain of sand. But giant hazards—pebbles and whole comets—were best avoided entirely. The same lasers flooded the space ahead with picosecond bursts of light, and the AI watched for the spectral reflections of lurking carbon and frigid ice. At a fat fraction of lightspeed, there was barely enough time to see everything and react appropriately. But by the same token, the streakship was narrow and lean, and auxiliary rockets no bigger than a thumb could be fired anywhere along its hull, giving it one or a hundred useful nudges. The nudges were what the passengers noticed. When several rockets fired in tandem, the ship gave a little shiver, the cumulative vibrations slipping through the hull. Shove the streakship’s trajectory a few millimeters now, and they would eventually miss the hazard by thousands of kilometers. But every new trajectory revealed more little motes and goblins waiting in ambush. Plus there was the fierce, uncompromising need to hold to their essential course. Every correction demanded
an equal countercorrection, and every brief firing of the tiniest rocket meant consequences that had to be measured, then erased by a sleepless machine designed for this narrow job, bringing with it an intellectual clarity, a wealth of experience, and a numbing and shameless pride.
“I am not the
Elassia,
” the machine liked to boast.
Pamir usually clamped his mouth shut, saying nothing.
“With me,” it would purr, “you wouldn’t have died between the stars.”
Ages ago, while he still felt like a young man, Pamir had served on board a far more primitive starship. The Elassia had collided with a hunk of comet, everyone aboard killed in a single fiery instant. But luck and a predictable course meant that Pamir’s remains were discovered eventually. Enough of his mind survived to fill the rebuilt body, and the tragedy as well as his own incredible luck had given him a certain lingering fame.
The AI knew the
Elassia’s
story, and it knew Pamir. The boasts were bait. It loved to tease the ship’s captain, pointing out all of its laudable features as well as the rapid, unconscious brilliance that it brought to this vital undertaking.
“From ten light-hours out,” it claimed, “I could fly us through a barn door.”
What a peculiar expression. Pamir’s first instinct was to consult the library. His second instinct was to ask the AI for an explanation. But the best response was to do nothing. With a conspicuous indifference, Pamir drifted into the middle of his tiny cabin, busily preparing both of the day’s routine messages.
“Through the barn door,” the voice continued, “and in another ten light-hours, I could slip us under the
Arch of the Accord
.”
An old Martian sculpture, Pamir recalled. But he remained focused on his own uninspired work. An unbroken telemetry stream was being maintained with home, but a more thorough report was dispatched every twenty-four
hours, encrypted and launched inside a pulse of infrared laser light. The routine was perfectly normal in these kinds of missions. What was unusual was the second message, considerably shorter and more heavily encrypted: a soft whisper, in essence; a few words offered to a closer set of ears.
“I am a marvel of design and hard experience,” the AI remarked.
It was, and it was. But why repeat what everybody knew full well? With a lazy indifference, Pamir stretched his long back and told the ship, “Send out the dailies, now.”
“This marvel shall,” said the AI.
And then, “I have.”
“Thank you.”
An instant later, Pamir heard what sounded like a burst of rain against a distant roof. They were still five light-weeks removed from what might or might not be the edge of the Inkwell. But there were more hazards every day—nearly invisible twists of grit with the occasional thumb-sized shard of ice. Quietly, Pamir asked, “Is it only dust?”
“To the best of my considerable knowledge, it is. Nothing but.”
“Show me a sampling,” he persisted. “Five hundred spectrum, spread across the last ninety minutes.”
The data were delivered in an instant.
Again, the AI mentioned, “I am perhaps the finest vessel ever built.”
Finally, Pamir took the bait. With a grimace and a slow smile, he asked, “What about the Great Ship?”
“Slow and fat,” the AI replied.
“Vast and safe,” Pamir countered. “Ancient and marvelous. Mysterious and polite.”
“Polite?”
“Silent,” he joked.
Again, the sound of rain drifted inward, coming this time from a different portion of the hull. And then moments
later, there was a rattling roar directly in front of Pamir. With a grim little smile, he muttered, “I understand.”
Silence.
“I know what you’re feeling,” Pamir continued, using an insight he had carried for the last few weeks. “Don’t try to fool me. Because you can’t.”
“What do I feel?” asked a doubtful voice.
“Afraid.”
Silence.
“We’re diving into blackness,” said Pamir. “Faster than anyone should, we’re going to race toward a world you can barely see through all this nastiness. The Master sends us charts, and the polyponds give you advice. But everything you receive from them is weeks out of date, and the charts never quite agree with one another. Which is reasonable, considering the limits of everyone’s sensors. And you’re responsible for more than any sentient soul would wish to be. Our lives. Your own existence. The fate of billions, perhaps. And just maybe, the survival of a giant machine that might be as old as the universe.”
Again, silence.
Pamir laughed quietly, his focus returning to the volumes of data. What he saw was scrupulously ordinary dust. But what else would there be? A useful paranoia mixed with the wildest speculations, and he ordered a new sequence of spectra along with a hammering of microwaves.
“It’s a tough, damning burden,” he echoed. Then with a nod, he added, “Bluster is a good trick. But if you ever feel your bluster wearing thin, tell me. Right away, tell me.”
The proud voice asked, “What will you do then?”
“I’ll share my luck with you,” Pamir remarked. “And believe me. If it comes to it, you’ll be happy to get all the luck you can … !”
QUARTERS WERE CLOSE, and after ages spent wandering through the vast halls and rooms of the Great Ship, the crew had to make adjustments. Frames of reference had to diminish, personal space retreating to a cramped minimum. In place of ten-hectare apartments and endless possessions, a tiny cabin and a single uniform had to be enough. And as the mission progressed, that narrow existence had to become natural, or better, feel like more than plenty.
“Humans are adaptable creatures,” Perri proclaimed one day, tucked into one of the narrow slots inside their very tiny galley. Eating a slice of cultured petty roast, he happily added, “‘We’re more adaptable than most species, from my experience.”
“Or more stupid,” Pamir replied.
Quee Lee seemed to be listening to their little argument. To the eye, she was lovely enough that Pamir found himself instantly aware of her location in any room, and unlike her husband, she preferred to look like a woman who enjoyed what was once called middle age. She had pleasantly rounded features and an easy warm smile. There was a little gray in the bright black hair. But the smile had retreated, and with a voice just hinting at worry, she said, “It’s getting louder.”
The rainlike rumbling, she meant.
Maneuvering rockets were firing in tens now, constantly and fiercely, and they were still five or six or maybe ten days from the Inkwell. Not for the first time, or last, Pamir reminded everybody, “We’ll adjust our tolerances, eventually.”
Cut down the distances between near collisions, he meant.
“Besides,” he continued, “the polyponds maintain that the debris fields won’t get any worse. Not along our course, at least.”
Only a few people took the trouble to reexamine the aliens’ charts. Most couldn’t find reassurance from a species they didn’t know, much less believe those broad
claims of sweeping the worst dangers out of the blackness before them. That kind of trickery seemed unlikely. Or it was just too sweet. Or worst of all, it was all true—the polyponds genuinely wielded complete control over the whereabouts of every mote and snowflake inside their homeland—and that type of power was too impressive, too incredible and odd, and with the slightest shift of mood, it could prove deadly.
Nudging the conversation back to useful topics, Pamir asked, “Any thoughts about the newest news?”
Everyone fell silent and thoughtful.
Nexuses were opened; memories were triggered.
Quee Lee responded first. With a smoothly amazed voice, she asked, “Have you ever heard of such a remarkable life-form?”
Pamir had known a few odd creatures, but he didn’t respond.
“What they’re admitting … how they’ve organized themselves and their biology …” She hesitated. “But maybe, no. Maybe they aren’t that remarkable.”
“We’re all spectacularly remarkable,” Perri offered.
Quee Lee nodded, smiled. Then she looked at her husband in a certain way, and he blurted the name of one of the Great Ship’s alien species.
She offered another.
And with a boyish wink, he added a third.
They were having an intricate, deeply personal conversation. Married for aeons, as familiar and accepting of each other as any two people could be, they had so thoroughly shared themselves to each other that every glance could open up entire volumes. A raised eye and a fond smile caused both of them to say, “The Queen,” in the same instant, then laugh loudly. Sitting across the galley from one another, they reached out, unable to touch but their fingers still curling as if clinging to each other, so perfectly familiar with the mate’s grip that even with half a dozen people between them, they felt as if they were holding hands.
It was a marriage that enthralled and embarrassed the rest of the crew, putting them to shame and setting a lofty goal that ten billion years of happy life might not produce.
Pamir felt all the valid emotions.
On occasion, drifting past their tiny cabin door, the antinoise shield would flicker, allowing a warm, excited, and a curiously anonymous voice to escape. A wail of pleasure; a sob of exhaustion. Which was why he had dubbed them, “the honeymooners.” And that was why he laughed now, gently teasing them with the hoary barb, “Would you two like to be alone?”
Perri showed his wife a certain wink.
And Quee Lee grinned and grinned, every tension erased, that warm sensuous voice remarking with a seamless, infectious joy, “I’m very sorry, Captain. I thought we were alone.”
TWO DAYS OUT of the Inkwell, their luck ran thin.
“It’s a system failure,” the AI reported, “and I don’t seem to be able to … wait … no, I cannot fix it by myself—”
“It’s the armor?” Pamir blurted.
“No, the V-elbow has jammed,” the voice reported.
“Now?”
Then with a flash of grim humor, the AI pointed out, “But this would be the most inconvenient time.”
The streakship was in the middle of realigning itself. While the bulk of hyperfiber umbrella remained in the forward position, the rest of its body was undergoing a series of slow contortions. Fuel tanks and engines and the tiny habitat were shifting and sliding, reworking the architecture of the entire machine to place their aft in the lead, making ready for the long braking burns.
“What do you need?” Pamir asked.
“Hands,” the AI replied.
“How many, and where?”
Precise diagrams were delivered both to Pamir’s nexus and to the simple reader embedded in his cabin wall.
“Fuck,” he offered.
“Indeed,” the AI agreed.
Mass restrictions meant that the ship had no robots equal to the task. If necessary, they could be assembled, but their components were scattered and currently occupied. Time mattered, and at least two pairs of hands were needed. But making matters infinitely worse, the balky elbow was currently thrust out beyond the protective fringe of the armor. Left there too long, the relentless rain of atoms and little molecules would erode it to a rotten shell.