Across the Sea of Suns Read online

  “You’re sure that stuff was theirs?”

  “They are the ones complaining—isn’t the conclusion obvious? I believe they and perhaps, too, their lackeys, the Japanese, have discovered how much progress we are making. They would very much like to turn the Swarmers and their larva to their own nationalistic advantage. These messages”—he waved the pack of them—”are more diplomatic notices. The Japanese have given my government an ultimatum of sorts. Ha! Imagine them—!” He snorted derisively.

  “Think they have forces near here?” Warren asked.

  “Improbable. Other powers, however …” He eyed Warren. “One of our men is missing.”

  “Oh?”

  “We gather he sneaked off to go fishing last night. On the beach—no one is stupid enough to go out on the water alone, not even a trooper. He did not return.”

  “Huh. The Skimmers usually go out beyond the reef at sundown. Shouldn’t be anything in the lagoon at night. Fishing’s lousy then, anyway.”

  “A trooper would not know that. He perhaps thought to get fresh meat. Understandable.” Tseng frowned for a moment and then said formally, “I am sure even you understand that this is part of a larger game. China does not, of course, wish to use the Swarmers against other powers. Even if we knew how to do so.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “But I thought you were American.”

  “I don’t think I said.”

  “I see. I think it is time to have Underofficer Gijan take you back to your little room, then.”

  PART EIGHT

  NEAR ROSS 128

  ONE

  Nigel made his slow way along a rocky corridor. He preferred the low-g sections of the ship, where a stumble could be turned into a slight imbalance, rather than a resounding, bone-splintering crash. Crew members passed him easily, since he moved with deliberate caution. He recognized few of them now. He had spent most of the voyage from Isis working by himself, and the faces he saw no longer called up automatic names and associations. But one did catch his attention and he slowed, reached out—

  “Nigel,” the man said, “I didn’t want it to come like this. I need a few weeks more of, of getting used to—”

  Then it struck him. The similarities were too close, and yet—

  “Carlotta!”

  “Honestly, I was going to leave a letter for you and Nikka, but at the last minute, somehow I couldn’t get it down right and—”

  “You’ve, you’ve …” Carlotta had the same wiry build, but the softening curves were gone, replaced by slabs of muscle. The face was more chunky, but beneath the changes he had instantly seen the same bone structure. The muscles still gave the same slightly askew smile, the backward tilt to the head when she spoke.

  “Let’s get away from here. I can see you—Well, we need to talk.” Her voice was a deeper version of the familiar Californian accent.

  He followed her, confused and inarticulate. They sat in a bower overlooking Lurkey’s brimming yellow vat. Carlotta spoke simply, slowly, detailing her reasons. He could not follow much of what she meant. When she began to speak of Nikka it became clearer to him.

  “There is a thing between men and women,” Carlotta said. “Not deeper, maybe, but certainly different from the relationship of women to each other, no matter how hard you try to make it—” She stopped. “I’m not getting through, am I ?”

  “I … You seem to be saying, indirectly, that you’ve done this because of Nikka? That you’re my rival, now?”

  “Bad choice of words. But if you want it that way, then, yes. I always was.”

  “But you and me, we slept together—”

  “So did Nikka and I.”

  “You understood … I mean, ’I knew, that was all right.”

  “Yes. But—”

  “I’ve got nothing against it. Look, Ted Landon’s been sleeping with some guy in BioEngineering for years, and it never undermined his position. Nobody gives a damn anymore.”

  “You’re saying that’s okay, but what I’ve just done—”

  “That’s different.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t—”

  “How could you expect me to—”

  “Wait. Just wait, Nigel. Look, on a long expedition like this, what’s the point of being a woman? Having kids takes too much time, and anyway shipboard population shouldn’t be increased beyond—”

  “Theoretical reasons.”

  “Okay. I want to be in charge of, of a relationship. Not just helpful and supportive. And I wanted to try it. See what being a man—”

  “Ummmm.”

  “That damned ‘ummmm’ of yours! Sitting back, judging—a very male noise, Nigel. Well, I want to make that noise, too.” He made a sound halfway between a murmur and a grunt.

  Nigel smiled slightly. “Carlotta, there’s more to—”

  “Carlos.”

  Something in the tone of the word made Nigel stiffen. “If you’re going to come between Nikka and me, I—”

  “I wasn’t between you before?”

  “Not this way, not—”

  “Not as a ‘rival,’ as you so charmingly put it?”

  “You’re twisting what I say.”

  “Not as much as you think, what you really think.”

  Nigel said coldly, “That remains—”

  “Notice how much of a confrontation this has turned into? Two men, not giving an inch.”

  “Why should I give—”

  “You don’t have to. I’m not changing everything. We’ll still have a loose triangle. My relationship with Nikka will be different, but there’s no reason—”

  “No. I don’t like it.”

  “I want to, to face the world with a new persona. Try out this heavy, bulky body. You have no idea how it is.” Carlos rolled his thick shoulder muscles experimentally.

  Despite himself, Nigel asked, “How different … is it?”

  Carlos smiled in a friendly way. “Very.”

  Carlos began to see Nikka, but never in Nigel’s company. Nikka found Carlos attractive, and Nigel could find no reason why he should object to her using the privileges they had always accorded each other. Their relationship had never been completely binding, after all. But the theoretical perspective did nothing to alter his deeply smoldering feelings of anger and, yes, envy. Carlos was younger and more vibrant, that was part of his appeal. He easily slipped into the fast pace of preparations for exploring the Ross system. Nigel spent time on the analysis net, but if anything it made him more withdrawn.

  He spoke with Nikka about it. To her the facts were plain and, in the light of medicosurgery, unexceptional. Freedom to alter one’s sex was as basic as any other right. Nigel could accept this theoretically, but he came to an abrupt halt at the specific case of Carlos. There was something to the entire issue that set his teeth on edge, something beyond simple rivalry, and yet he could not get a sure grip on it. When he spoke his throat seemed to get tight, his voice dry and scratchy.

  It was confusing to him, particularly since no one else, even Nikka, appeared to take the emergence of Carlos as more than a passing, mildly interesting bit of gossip. It cropped up in conversation among their friends for a week or so, and then vanished in the general hubbub about Ross 128.

  TWO

  It’s a pretty faint little bugger, we can hardly make out any of its planets in the optical

  Well down in the infrared I’m picking up plenty from the two terrestrial-sized planets looks like a high albedo on both of ’em

  Wish we had a decent-sized star to reconnoiter this damn one’s small as Ra an’ got a lotta flares on it give a look at ’at corona big splotches all over it

  Bound to be variable, all the small stars are, so according to theory those terrestrials’ll have big swings in the weather

  Doesn’t look good for a stable biosphere on those

  Outer planets all ’bout Saturn-sized lotsa moons and two rings, some asteroids between those two, looks like it’s a pretty standard
pattern

  Why the Isis Watcher would beam a signal to this dead place I dunno maybe a mistake, huh Nigel?

  Wait until the returns are in

  Got an image here yeah give a look that first terrestrial’s got no atmosphere, high albedo, must be bare rock

  You got those IRs on the second yet I know there’s a malf in that sensor but we been waitin’ damn long time

  Comin’ in now looks like mebbe 178 degrees kelvin, pretty cold, but we expected that with a pip-squeak sun to warm it, I sure don’t pick up much else

  Some carbon dioxide, little ammonia—maybe a lot of ice an’ snow

  Bring the right scope down some, that reflectivity it’s jumpin’ all over when I put it on tight beam, must mean there’s plenty of reflectin’ surfaces, ice fields I bet

  No sign of bioactivity in that atmosphere dull as dishwater

  The grav-lens told us it looked jolly crappy, no surprise there

  Goddamn all this way an’ nothin’ but junk

  We knew all along with an M star like this it was rather like expecting roses in a jam jar to look for a biosphere

  Cold as a hoor’s tit an’ we’re years from any-thin’ interestin’ even if we had the juice to get there

  Ted we haven’t lost all our thrust we could boost back up, just swing through the Ross system and head on out

  I like ’at we could pick up couple months on gettin’ back up to near-light speed ’stead of wallowin’ round in this icebox

  Better hurry up on it if we’re gonna do it got a critical transition comin’ up in the reaction engines Ted

  Bloody hell we’re not done with recon yet

  Betcher butt there won’t be nothin’ to see

  Nothing alive that’s for sure

  Scrub it I say

  We need a vote ’a the whole ship to do ’at

  Na, rule is section leaders can decide in a pinch an’ this sure as hell is one

  Janet send in a formal request from ExoBio if it’s your judgment that there’re no life sites here

  Alex you’re in the net still—aren’t you?—Alex?—he isn’t repped in

  So skip him there’s no time

  No I can’t make a decision—with Section leaders’ consent of course—until I’ve heard from Alex

  The big radio dishes aren’t fully deployed yet I don’t see

  Ted this is Alex—sorry we had a resolution problem on aft antenna but I’ve got the outer part of the Ross system mapped now, the big gas giants and there’s something there with a lot of metal in it

  Step up the gain I need more detail

  Ted this is Nigel it’s just not on to cancel this early

  Christ don’t listen to him this is ExoBio Ted look he’s just tryin’ to stretch out the encounter time to prove out this theory of his that nobody believes anyway an this’s the last hurrah anyway for him I say we boost soon’s Alex

  Yeah we can pick up rest of the data on the flyout

  We got a good fraction of the minimum already

  I don’t give a sweet shit about minimum performance we’re facing years of voyage Christ what’s a few more months

  Spend the time in Slots Nigel do you good

  Give it a rest, eh? Ted, I appeal to you, don’t

  Gentlemen we got maybe ten minutes to decide, tops, or I got to shut the drive down

  Christ Alex can you see anymore?

  I’m getting some kind of metal on one of the gas giant moons that’s all I can say right now looks like very bright in the radio reflectivity but that’s all I can say

  Section leaders this is Ted I’m reviewing ExoBio’s request you people got any further input shoot it in now

  Y’know it’s a good idea to keep the reaction goin’ just in case I mean the biggest malf probability is in the start-up phase

  Yeah keep that in mind Ted we got risk every time we shut down

  Look—damn!—we can’t make a balls-up of this because of some sodding engineering constraint

  Quiet Nigel—look, any more input before I

  Yeah shut up the old crock and get us out of this pisshole

  Seems to me it’s pretty clear we seen plenty systems like this already from the probes

  The grav-lens told us most of this already, point is to look closer—

  Okay this is Ted after reviewing the systems board I can see the logic of picking up some time on our outbound

  Alex is there any new

  Throw in the towel Nigel for Chrissake

  Hey I’ve lost the reflection

  What’s ’at?

  No radio reflection at all from that moon now, just gone out

  Check for detuning of the antenna Alex that’s pro’bly it

  No I’m still bringing in good radio images of the gas giant, no degrading of the system—I’d say the thing’s just plain gone

  Musta been a ghost image jest forget it

  No possibility of that, I had it dead for sure, big as your mouth ‘n’ twice as wide, even got a spectrum ’fore it vanished

  How fast is that moon spinning Alex?

  Lessee, nothin’ much—no, too slow, it’s tide-locked, that can’t explain it

  Then it was something in orbit around the Moon, that’s the only way it could go out that fast. It simply fell below the horizon from our angle of view

  Possible I guess but

  Possible hell you think of something else

  Well ah I

  Ted you’ve got to let us have a look at whatever that was

  Hell he does! We don’ have to do anything unless a majority

  No time for that

  Damn—look, this is Ted—I’m asking for a quick vote

  Don’t give bugger all for a vote this is a scientific issue man not a

  Alex here look I think he’s got you there Ted our mandate is to study not just survey and could be the thing did drop out of sight which makes it a damned funny configuration in its own right, never mind if it’s an artifact or not

  Listen, we skip this radio blip, we can pick up months, not have to worry about the drive start-up routine

  Yeah, who wants to be the one goes in there an’ scrapes the throat walls while rest you guys are playin’ astronomer

  Quiet look this is Ted and I—well, the directives don’t leave me much choice

  Damn

  We’ve got to take a look at that site

  Alex this turns out to be a screw-up I’m gonna

  And I want a rendezvous orbit near that gas giant

  Bang on that’s it

  Yeah.

  THREE

  Rain had brought out the scents of the gardens—loquats, crisp grains, roots, fresh-turned earth, blending and subduing them. Nigel paused in his creaking labors and looked toward the nose of the ship, where the life sphere tapered into a bare point. It was like peering into the underside of a silagree of stone, an inverted spire spun by some huge spider.

  He stretched to ease his back muscles. Ah. He could barely manage an hour of this labor now. He told Nikka it was for the appearance of the thing, to defuse comments about his general incompetence at things physical, to derail a close inspection of his medical situation. But in fact he liked this turning of the soil, this 6CO2 + 6H2O, in turn giving forth starchy C6H12O6 + oxygen to burn anew, onboard as it is in heaven. With the drive off there was no ready ultraviolet for the engineers to step down into the optical region, so they had gone back to using phosphors strung along the zero-g axis. These luminous ropes gave off a harsh glare he found unpleasant, but the plants grew well; a leaf is indifferent to where it gets its photons.

  Lancer was taking a long loop through the Ross 128 system, coming around to rendezvous with the gas giant and its interesting moon. He preferred to pass the time away from the clatter of the Operating Net.

  He bent back to plucking tomatoes free of their vines. To his mind the prime virtue of artificial biospheres was the lack of weeds, for otherwise it’d be a sore job to—

  “I could hea
r the grunting from a hundred meters away,” Ted Landon said.

  Nigel straightened as quickly as he could without wincing, and smiled. “Like to work up a sweat.”

  “The fellas missed you on the net this morning.”

  “Figured you could do without my mumbling.”

  “Latest scans on that moon came in.”

  “Really?”

  “Standard gas giant satellite. Funny purple coloring, some ice tectonics making ridges. Heavily cratered, too.”

  “Like Ganymede.” He did not mention that he’d tapped into the map subroutines and gotten the drift direct, some hours before the net did.

  “Yeah, looks that way. You were right about the asteroid orbiting it, though.”

  Nigel kept harvesting tomatoes. Ted squatted and pulled a few ripe ones. “Big durosteel hull on one side of it,” he said casually.

  “A Watcher, then.”

  “Looks like it. Kind of gives the fork to Walmsley’s Rule.”

  “Ummm. A Watcher, yet not a prayer that this moon was ever a life site?”

  “Going to lower your stock on the net. First clear case we get to check your rule, it fails.”

  “Glad I wasn’t on the net, then.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Rather like being at a posh reception and finding you’ve caught your cock in your zip.”

  Ted laughed.

  “It’s a case worth studying, though, eh?”

  Ted straightened and studied a tomato reflectively. “That’s not what I came about.” He looked soberly at Nigel.

  “Oh?” Nigel stood up, too, glad that they had at last gotten through the opening moves.

  “Carlos tells me you’re taking this thing of his pretty hard.”

  “Perhaps for Americans it’s easier. Priests of high tech, no matter where it leads, and all that.”

  “Think you’re overdoing it, maybe?”

  “Possibly.” It was always best to leave some area of uncertainty, for later compromise once the man had made his point.