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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Part 1: The Ship

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part 2: Marrow

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Part 3: The Master’s Chair

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Part 4: The Bleak

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Part 5: The Builders

  Epilogue

  Books by Robert Reed

  Praise

  About the Author

  Copyright

  TO THE FIRST ARTIST IN MY LIFE,

  MY GRANDFATHER,

  QUENTIN “HEINZ” MOORE

  PART 1

  THE SHIP

  … a sleep, sweet as Death … time traversed, and an incalculable distance … and then a splash of light emerged from the dark and the cold, its warming touch slowly explaining itself to me, showing suns and little worlds and great swirls of colored gas and angry, roaring dust.

  A barred spiral galaxy, this was.

  Possessing such beauty, and a majesty, that I could not help but stare. And wrapped within that majesty, a frailty, ignorant and vast.

  The galaxy’s path and mine were plain.

  Without question, we would collide.

  My gaze was sure to be returned by many more gazes. I knew that, just as I had known that this day was inevitable. Yet when I saw that tiny first machine racing toward me, I was surprised. So soon! And yes, the machine could see me. I watched its mirrored eyes focus on my scarred old face. I watched it fire tiny rockets, exhausting itself in order to pass nearer to me. Then it spat out a minuscule device whose only duty was to collide with my face, undoubtedly followed by a trail of data and new questions. At nearly half the speed of light, we met. Only I survived Then the mother machine swept past, turning its eyes, watching my trailing face, a part of me imagining its wondrous surprise.

  My backside is adorned with rocket nozzles.

  Bigger than worlds, and more ancient, my engines are as chilled and quiet as this ancient universe of ours.

  Hello, I said.

  Without a voice.

  Brother machine, hello.

  My friend continued on its way, and for a little while, I was alone again. Which was when I first sensed just how deep my loneliness had grown.

  Ignoring caution, denying every duty, I began wishing for another visitor. What would be the harm? A little robotic companion, transitory and incompetent … how could a mere device present any hazard to me…?

  But it wasn’t one probe sent to greet me. No, the machines came in flocks and fleets. Some serenely committed suicide, diving into my leading face. Others flew near enough to feel my tug, curling around my backside, enjoying a close quick look at my great engines. Their shape and basic design were the same as the first probe, implying a shared maker. Following their trajectories back through space and time, I discovered a telltale intersection. A single yellowish sun lay at the nexus. It and its neighboring suns had spawned the machines. I slowly accepted the unlikely answer that a single species had seen me before any other. But clearly, this galaxy was not a simple place. As time passed and the intervening distances shrank, other devices arrived from a multitude of places. I watched a parade of machines built of simple metals and sculpted gas and encased in hydrogen ice, and from hundreds of thousands of suns came every sort of electromagnetic noise, in soft squirts and squawks, elaborate songs and brazen shouts.

  “Hello,” the voices shouted. “And who are you, friend?”

  Who I appear to be, I am.

  “And what, friend, do you mean to us?”

  Just what I appear to mean, I told them. With silence. In every way, what you see in me is most definitely what I am.

  * * *

  ANIMALS CAME FROM someplace between me and that yellowish sun.

  Their first vessel was tiny, and simple, and extraordinarily frail. Enormous bravery must have taken them this far. The creatures had to leave the brightness of their own galaxy, and at mid-voyage, they stopped themselves, turned and started home again, their little engines pushing and pushing, matching my terrific velocity at the perfect moment. Then they slowed again, just slightly, letting me catch up to them, and maintaining a smart cautious distance, they coaxed themselves into a useful orbit.

  As I watched, a thousand automated machines descended on me.

  Hovered, then set down.

  My scars and my trajectory implied my age.

  No galaxies lay behind me. Not even a dark, half-born galaxy of consequence. That kind of emptiness has few obstacles. Comets are rare, suns rarer, and even simple dusts are scarce. Yet my leading face was cratered and cracked, implying to the curious animals that I had come a terrific distance, and I was as old as their home world.

  At the very least.

  “This ship is cold,” their machines reported. “Most definitely asleep, and quite possibly dead.”

  A derelict, in simple terms.

  Between my leading face and the trailing face lay great ports, empty and closed, and securely locked. But smaller hatches and doorways could be opened with a determined push, and after begging for instructions, that was what several machines did. They eased open doors that had been closed almost forever, and behind them they found descending passageways and neat, unworn stairs perfectly suited for a humanoid’s graceful, long-legged gait.

  The animals themselves made their last little leap.

  When feet had last descended my stairs, I could not recall. But here came the humans, in twos and tens, entering my interior with a cautious sense of purpose. At first, they wore bulky su
its and carried weapons and spoke in soft radio voices, using elaborate codes. But as they moved deeper, the old air thickened around them, and tests showed oxygen left to breathe, a multitude of life-support systems still at work, coaxing my guests to remove their helmets, sniffing once, then breathing deeper, and in that human fashion, smiling.

  The first voice said, “Hello,” and heard only its own nervous echo in reply.

  Beneath my armored hull was a vast cold ocean of stone laced with grand passageways and abrupt dead ends and rooms too vast to be absorbed in a single look, or even a lifetime. The darkness was thorough, relentless. But every wall and ceiling had its lamps and holoprojectors, their machinery transparently simple and easily ignited; plus there were armies of local reactors waiting to be brought from their slumber modes to furnish power.

  In little places, then larger ones, I was awakened.

  And still, I had no voice.

  Did I ever possess the power of speech?

  Perhaps not, I realized. Perhaps what I remember as my voice is actually another’s. But whose? And how can any span of time rob such a basic, essential knowledge?

  Most of the humans now boarded me.

  With care and fondness, I counted them. Twelve to the fourth power, plus a few more. Which was a tiny, almost negligible number compared to my vastness.

  But then more ships arrived—an armada coming from other suns, other human worlds. These newer vessels had more powerful, efficient engines. And I realized that even if these were animals, they could adapt quickly. Which had to be a good thing.

  But why was it good?

  With all of my new energies, I tried to shout at my innocent companions, begging them to please listen to me.

  Yet I was mute.

  Save a whispering wind, and the crackle of random energy in a granitic wall, and the dry clatter of gravel preceding the touch of a human foot, I could make no sound.

  The human population increased another twelvefold.

  And for a little while after that, nothing changed.

  The explorers had all arrived With a crisp efficiency, they mapped every tunnel and crevice, giving each a precise designation. Every large room and cavernous chamber was honored with a special name. Great seas of water and ammonia, methane and silicone, were found in my interior, at many depths. Banks of machinery could manipulate their chemistry, making them suitable for a wide range of life-forms. Understandably, the humans adjusted one of the water seas as an experiment, its salts and acidity made to their liking, its temperature warm on the surface and cold beneath; and with a bid toward permanence, they built a little city overlooking the sea’s black-bouldered shore.

  Whatever the humans discovered inside me, I discovered, too.

  Until that moment, I had never fully comprehended my greatness, or my own glorious, well-worn beauty.

  I wanted to thank my guests, and could not. Just as I couldn’t make them hear my plaintive warnings. But I was growing more comfortable with my muteness. Everything has its reason, and no matter how great and glorious I am, I am nothing compared to the wise ones who created me … and who am I, a mere machine, to question their boundless wisdom…?

  * * *

  BENEATH MY WATERY seas were still larger oceans of liquid hydrogen.

  Fuel for my sleeping engines, no doubt.

  Humans learned how to repair my pumps and giant reactors, and they managed to activate one of the great engines, an experimental burst of high-velocity plasmas proving hotter than expected, and more powerful.

  By then, we were plunging into their galaxy.

  It was named for a mother’s secretions, this Milky Way.

  I began to taste its dusts, and its feeble heat warmed my old skin. A quarter of a trillion suns were below me, plus a hundred trillion worlds, living and otherwise. From nothingness, I was falling into the cosmopolitan heart of the universe. Tens of thousands of species had seen my arrival, and naturally a few sent their own tiny ships, orbiting me at the usual respectful distance, using many voices as they asked to be allowed onboard, or bluntly demanded to be given possession of me.

  The humans refused everyone. Politely at first, then less so.

  I heard their cold officious words about interstellar law and the status of derelict ships. Then came a careful, calculated silence.

  One of the interlopers decided on action. Without warning, it attacked, turning the human starships into light and pulverized debris.

  Unprepared for war, most species made a graceless retreat. Only the most violent few remained, unleashing their weapons against my armored hull. But if I can withstand a giant comet impacting at a fat fraction of lightspeed, their tritium bombs and X-ray lasers could do nothing. Nothing. The humans, safely inside me, went about their lives, ignoring the bombardment, repairing and recalibrating my old guts while their enemies exhausted themselves against my great body.

  One after another, the starships gave up the fight and left for home.

  Desperate to establish any claim, the last species attempted a hard landing. Their captain plunged toward my leading face, dipping in and out of craters while streaking toward the nearest port. It was a brave and bold and foolhardy act. A network of shield generators and lasers and antimatter cannons lay inside deep bunkers. In some lost age, they must have worked to protect me from comets and other hazards. As they had with my other systems, the humans had discovered the machinery and made repairs. And with a mixture of retribution and charity, they used the lasers to destroy the attackers’ engines, and their weapons, and they made prisoners out of the survivors.

  Then with a roaring voice, they shouted at the Milky Way.

  “This ship is ours!” they shouted.

  “Ours!”

  “Now, and always! The Ship belongs to us…!”

  * * *

  SET ON TOP of a great black boulder were black wooden chairs, and sitting on those chairs, enjoying the false sunshine, were the Master Captain and her closest staff, each dressed in his or her fanciest mirrored uniform.

  “Now that we’ve won,” began the Master, “what have we won?”

  No one spoke.

  “We’ve got title to the largest starship ever,” she continued, gesturing at a blue ceiling and the warm surf and the warmer basaltic rock. “But governments and corporations paid for our mission here, and they aren’t unreasonable to expect some return on their fat investments.”

  Everyone nodded, and waited. They knew the Master well enough to hold tight to their opinions, at least until she looked at them and said their names.

  “This ship is moving awfully fast,” she pointed out.

  “Even if we could rotate one hundred and eighty degrees and fire its engines until the tanks are dry, we’d still be moving too fast to dock anywhere. You can’t make twenty Earth masses dance for you. Can you?”

  Silence.

  She chose a narrow, coolly professional face. “Miocene?”

  Her assistant said, “Yes, madam.”

  “Ideas? Any?”

  “We can’t stop ourselves, madam. But we could use our engines to adjust our course.” Miocene was a tall, perpetually calm woman. She glanced at the compad on her lap, then let her walnut-colored eyes lift and meet the Master’s impatient gaze. “There is a white dwarf ahead of us. A three-day burn starting now would take us past it at relatively close range, and instead of slicing through the galaxy, we would be turned. The ship would pass through human space, then continue on into the heart of the galaxy.”

  “But to what end?” asked the Master.

  “To give us more time to study this technology. Madam.”

  A few of her fellow captains risked little nods of agreement.

  But for some reason, the Master wasn’t convinced. With a sharp creaking of wood, she rose to her feet, towering over even the tallest of her subordinates. For a long while, she did nothing. She let them watch as she did nothing. Then she turned and stared across the open water, studying the wind-driven waves as they broke
against the basalt, her colorless swift mind trying to distill what was best from everything that was possible.

  Out in the surf, a whale appeared.

  It was a tailored minke whale—a popular species on terraformed worlds—and riding the saddle on its dark broad back was a single child. A girl, judging by her build and the wind-thinned giggle. Quietly, the Master asked, “Whose child is that?”

  With the war finished, the captains and crew had produced the occasional child, setting roots deeper into the ship.

  Miocene rose and squinted at the bright water, then admitted, “I’m not sure about the parents. But the girl lives nearby. I’m sure that I’ve seen her.”

  “Get her. Bring her to me.”

  Captains are captains because they can accomplish any chore, and usually with a minimum of fuss. But the girl and her whale proved difficult to catch. She ignored the orders coming across her headset. When she saw the skimmer approaching, she gave a loud giggle, then made her friend dive, both using their hydrolizing gills to breathe, staying out of easy reach for another full hour.

  Finally a parent was found, then convinced to coax his daughter to the surface, where she was captured and dressed in an oversized robe, her long black hair dried and tied before she was ushered to the top of the great boulder.

  The Master rose, offering her captive her own enormous chair. Then she sat on a knob of basalt, her mirrored uniform brilliant in the afternoon light, her voice almost as friendly as it was firm.

  “Darling,” she asked, “why do you ride that whale?”

  “For fun,” the younster replied instantly.

  “But swimming is fun,” the Master countered. “You can swim, can’t you?”

  “Better than you, ma’am. Probably.”

  When the Master laughed, everyone else did as well. Except for Miocene, who watched this interrogation with a growing impatience.

  “You’d rather ride than swim,” the Master said. “Am I right?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “When you’re clinging to your friend, do you feel safe?”

  “I guess. Sure.”

  “Safe.” The word was so important that it needed to be repeated. The Master said it a third time, then a fourth. Then again, she looked at the girl, smiled, and told her, “Fine. Thank you. Go on off and play some more, darling.”