The Well of Stars Read online

  Beside the projected Master, live-time images of the streakship were constantly displayed—a scorching point of light almost lost against the blackness. What was infinitely larger and more impressive was the cloud stretching out behind it. Water and carbon formed a neatly defined jet that would retain its basic shape for several years. Trailing after the streakship, the jet would eventually collide with the Inkwell, spreading and cooling further, adding a breath or two to its phenomenal and very thin mass.

  “Of course this isn’t just an engineering problem,” Aasleen admitted, her voice quiet and a little hopeful. “The polyponds are another conundrum entirely. Unless they happen to be the solution for everything, of course.”

  That’s what the Inkwell inhabitants called themselves.

  Polyponds.

  Washen nodded agreeably. On a secure channel, using an entire mirror field to serve as her own eyes, she peered into the warm jet of exhaust. Nothing was visible. Even knowing there was something to see didn’t help her eyes find it. She stared and stared, and after a while, she mentioned to Aasleen, “You did a marvelous job with the camouflage. Regardless what you think.”

  Her friend laughed quietly, appreciatively.

  “We have every reason to be proud,” the Master told her ship.

  And billions of faces, in homes and long avenues, nodded happily or showed some equivalent expression of faith, or hope, or at the very least, simple wishful thinking.

  THE FEF WERE small creatures—at least among organic species—and until the Wayward War, they were rarely listed among the first ranks of passengers. Their narrow bodies sported three pairs of limbs. The first and third pairs served as legs and stubby arms, while the longer middle pair, tipped with deft hands, reached upward. Between those middle arms was an eye pod affording views in all directions. Their omnivorous mouths were in front, while various ears were tucked into the gaps between the bony plates that had once protected their long, exposed backs. They began as one of several intelligent and technologically adept species on their home world—a light-gravity body some twenty thousand light-years behind them. As the Great Ship approached, every species on that world had seen the stunning images and heard the purposeful boasts roaring across the electromagnetic spectrum. But for reasons of culture and politics, and status and finance, only the fef showed serious interest in joining the grand voyage.

  To pay for their passage, they borrowed starship plans broadcast by the Great Ship and improved upon them, building a fleet of fat round hyperfiber vessels inside which were tanks filled with liquid hydrogen as well as a single small-mass black hole, heavily charged and suspended inside an elaborate cage. The captains had no compelling need for the hydrogen, since those frigid lakes couldn’t fuel the Great Ship’s engines for more than a few breaths. And while tiny black holes had their uses—in research and communication, mostly—there were already plenty of the dangerous little monsters waiting in inventory. But there were only a few of the fef on board each vessel, and they were pleasant enough, and by evidence of their work, they were gifted tinkerers. Gleefully, they accepted spartan quarters in a deep, lower-gravity district, easily blending into the multitude of odd species. And that was twenty thousand light-years ago, which meant sixty thousand years in the past. In the ages since, those few thousand immigrants had slowly and patiently prospered, making their livelihoods by repairing nonvital systems that the ship’s engineers couldn’t bother with. And in certain cases—if there was a burning hurry, or if certain permission forms hadn’t been tiled—fefs would do their usual excellent work in the briefest possible time. In the dark, preferably, since they were a nocturnal species. And for a considerable fee. But they never discussed their clients, and they continued to live quietly among the multitude of aliens, shoving their profits into the acquisition of new quarters where their children began raising their own families—a few colonists becoming a nation numbering more than half a billion souls.

  “Your greatness,” the leading fef declared, standing at the entranceway to the repair camp. Built with diamond and furnished sparingly, the facility was a chain of transparent bubbles set on the open hull, the lighting reduced to a comfortable gloom. High-grav braces helped him stand as he proclaimed, “It is an honor to have you with us, your splendor.”

  “Thank you,” Washen replied, offering a tidy little bow.

  “Thank you for coming,” the leader muttered, speaking through his translator. “May we quench a thirst? Stuff a stomach? Or perhaps, we could sing to you—”

  “Nothing. Thank you.”

  “If you need—”

  “I will demand.”

  “And we will serve you, your majesty.”

  Twenty months had passed since the launching of the streakship. The Inkwell covered most of the sky now—a featureless ebony face betraying nothing to human eyes. What was bright and spectacular was the occasional flash of light when a laser struck some mountain-sized hazard, followed by the colorful aurora as the shields collected the ionized debris, pulling the ionized wreckage across the sky and down to where elaborate, heavily armored facilities collected the material, sorting it by its elemental composition, and then sending the treasures to storage or selling them to some critical industry.

  The leading fef bent in the middle, two pairs of feet moving together, lifting his eye pod closer to the First Chair’s face. “I hope that I have not stolen you away from any vital work, your marvel.”

  Washen shrugged. “For the moment, no.”

  “But they refuse to leave the work site,” the alien persisted. “I know they have permission to be there. But we have goals, and timetables, and if these deep cavities are not patched soon—”

  “These are minor problems,” she interrupted.

  Nothing was minor to a fef. With a suddenly tense voice, he replied, “Madam. I know they have your permission to tour the deep cavities. That is why I contacted you before anyone. My team and I have done no work for the last thirty-two days. Perhaps these cavities mean something, but if that is the case, we must be found other assignments. Work is the heart of existence, madam. As long as they are down there—”

  “You have no heart. I understand:”

  The fef lowered his eye pod, and after some considerable thought, he decided to say nothing more.

  “Perhaps I should speak with them,” Washen offered.

  “If you could, please. Madam. All of us would be most appreciative.”

  She looked across the facility. Hundreds of fef were showing their thanks by rocking side to side, and among them were their robots—thousands of insectlike bodies that made, what was for them, a kowtowing motion.

  “Where is your access tunnel?” the Submaster inquired.

  “This way,” the leader said. “I will take you down myself.”

  Quietly, Washen said, “Thank you. But no.”

  Directly overhead, a substantial piece of ice exploded, obliterated by a nanosecond pulse of UV light.

  “Stay here,” she ordered. “This work is all mine.”

  THE COMET THAT struck during the war was relatively large and massive—thirty kilometers across and dense as new snow wrapped around chunks of rock and gravel. It had little velocity of its own, but the ship’s velocity had provided a fantastic amount of kinetic energy. Any normal world built of rock and warm iron would have been gutted, but the hull was made from more stubborn stuff. Heat and momentum were channeled into the hidden dimensions and speculative realms. The damage was more extensive than it should have been, but only because this was very close to where an even larger impact had occurred billions of years ago. A moon-sized object had smacked into the ship, creating a deep blast cone as well as a necklace of tiny, relatively trivial cavities. The first Remoras had patched the surface with the best available grades of hyperfiber. The fef were supposed to finish the repair begun one hundred thousand years ago, leaving the hull as sturdy as it might have been ten minutes after its unimaginable creation.

  Built for fefs, th
e cap-car felt tiny to Washen, and its air was thick with carbon dioxide and water vapor. Every breath was warm enough to remind her of every sauna that she had ever endured. And the car was swift, plunging to its destination, time passing too quickly to allow an overworked captain to steal more than a moment or two of sleep.

  With a hiss, the hatch dissolved.

  The air beyond was thinner and very dry. What might have been a narrow fissure had been enlarged, several meters of wounded hyperfiber removed to build a passageway as well as stripping away everything that was even a little weak. What remained was a long half-lit tunnel, gray walls looking like mirrors where they had already been prepared for the final repair. In time, the atmosphere would be yanked away and millions of liters of fresh, high-grade hyperfiber would pour into the emptiness. What was new would effortlessly merge with the rest of the hull, and once cured, only the most persistent expert armed with delicate sensors would notice the seams left behind.

  That was one of the miracles of hyperfiber—its endless capacity to accept every tiny graft and every giant patch.

  Washen walked patiently if not quite slowly. After a long lazy turn to the left, the passageway twisted to the right again, and with that turn she began to hear the quiet, smooth, and occasionally human sound of voices.

  Short of the chamber, she paused.

  “But if you consider,” said a voice. What followed was one of the dense AI languages, rapid and efficient and invented for no other purpose than to plumb the high realms of mathematics.

  “Consider this,” a second voice responded.

  The next dose of machine talk was louder and even quicker. A nexus translated for Washen, and three other nexuses did their best to explain what she was hearing. But one after another, her devices reached the limits of their ability. They apologized, or they simply fell silent, too embarrassed to speak.

  A third voice said, “Thank you.”

  And then a fourth voice, very familiar, said, “Why won’t you come the rest of the way, Mother? Don’t worry, you aren’t interrupting.”

  The First Chair stepped into the chamber.

  What was tiny on every official map was surprisingly large to the eye. The chamber was a hundred meters across, and someone other than the fef had positioned the bright lights and changed the air to approximate earthly tastes. Wearing rubber bodies and archaic clothes, the AIs sat on convenient rises and knolls, ignoring the sharp, mirror-bright edges. Locke was the only figure sitting on a flat surface, legs crossed and the remains of a dried hammerwing in his lap. With a charming little smile, he asked, “Are they growing impatient?”

  “A little,” his mother allowed. “They have their hyperfiber ready to pour. In case you want to be entombed here for all time.”

  Some of the more literal-minded AIs did the lightspeed equivalent of a flinch. Then everyone was laughing, and with an easy amiability, one of the rubber bodies jumped to its feet.

  “We shall leave,” the AI announced.

  “But first,” said Washen. And when everyone was staring at her, she asked, “Why here? What does this place tell you?”

  “It was my idea,” Locke confessed.

  She wasn’t surprised.

  “A different realm to jog our creativity,” reported the standing AI. The face was female and wrinkled, like the sages in ancient times. But the voice was young like a child’s. “We have questions to consider, puzzles to solve.”

  “New questions?” Washen inquired.

  “From a new vantage point,” the machine replied, “every question is new and intriguing.”

  Locke was climbing to his feet. A tiny Wayward pouch lay beside him, and as he reached for the leather straps, his mother saw something familiar.

  “May I?” she asked.

  He pretended not to understand. And then he considered refusing her request, or at least asking her if he possessed that freedom. But no, he decided to hand over the tightly folded copperwing. And like every son sensitive to a mother’s opinion, he mentioned again, “These are simple, obvious questions.”

  “I know.”

  “Things to consider.”

  “Quiet,” Washen advised.

  When she held the copperwing in her hands, her hands shook. Washen noticed the shaking with amusement, and she found herself taking a couple deep breaths before unfolding what had already become old and threadbare.

  By hand, Locke had written his questions, starting at one edge of the rounded wing and working down.

  “Does the Great Ship have a destination?” he had written. “And if so, did human beings screw things up when they took it for themselves?”

  Washen’s face went rigid, showing the tiniest nod.

  “Is the ship supposed to be going somewhere specific?” Locke asked aloud, with a quiet little voice.

  “What could be its destination?” she read aloud. “And does it involve the prisoner at the center of Marrow?”

  She read, “Or is the ship making a flight of escape instead? And if so, have humans screwed that up?”

  She looked at her son.

  Locke said nothing, a wary grin trying to hide.

  She read more questions. There were dozens of them, and as promised, nothing was authentically new here. How many times had she rolled these same matters around in her head? But in the course of a busy year, Washen didn’t invest more than the occasional dreamy moment considering these impregnable, unmanageable mysteries.

  “What if the Great Ship began its voyage on course?” Locke had written on a later date. The letters were clearer, the ink showing a hint of shine that was peculiar to the juice of a berryblack. “And what if its trajectory had been distorted by the moon-sized bolide?”

  She looked up again.

  “Good question,” was her verdict. “Is that why you’re down here? For inspiration?”

  Locke flashed a smile.

  “There’s more,” he mentioned. “Flip the wing over.”

  With respect for the long-dead appendage, she turned the wing with careful hands.

  “If the Great Ship was off course,” she read aloud, “could we humans and the Wayward War be part of some grand plan? And what if this grand plan has managed to put the ship back on the right road again?”

  She nodded, and breathed.

  Then she read the final lines, twice:

  “And what if the Great Ship has spent the last billions of years fleeing someone or something?

  “What if that something has been pursuing it all this time?

  “And if there is a pursuer out there—if, if, if—then how much harm have we humans done, forcing the Ship to change its trajectory, forcing it to follow a lazy, looping course through the milky waters of our galaxy?”

  THE INKWELL

  A multitude of specialists have tailored my newest voice. Utilizing oceans of experience as well as some considerable guesswork, they make me sound humble yet competent, harmless but enduring. In a hard whisper of microwave noise and infrared light, I show the nebula that I am very nearly nothing. A fleck. A dot. Little more than a mathematical point occupying an endlessly shifting position in space, passing quietly without complaint or important needs. My trajectory is nothing but a mistake, and I confess to being an inconvenience for whoever lives inside the cold black nebula. For this, I am sorry. Using images and the languages of the nearby worlds, I build a vocabulary I display a grammatical logic and then libraries of elaborate and honest explanations. I am a ship. A civilian vessel, I carry passengers and nothing else. Not mentioning Marrow or my ill-defined cargo is not a lie so much as a reasonable omission. How can I know exactly what resides inside my own belly? In countless ways, I am apologetic. This detour is not my plan, and I wish to make amends. In the course of traversing a great portion of our galaxy, I have managed to learn a few things. If I must pay some fee to cross their space, I will. Gladly, I will. Knowledge is my first and best currency. The cumulative experience of many thousands of species rides inside my halls and great rooms. For
any distraction and discomfort brought my passage, I will be generous. “What do you wish?” I ask the darkness. “I am listening, I am here. Tell me what you need and what you deserve, and I will happily give these good things to you, in exchange for my unavoidable presence.”

  It is a whimpering voice and hopefully useful. But there are moments and days when I change the tenor of my speech. Following a carefully prepared script, I show hints of other faces. Other moods. I seem tiny compared to the universe, yes, but I am also ancient and uncommonly strong. The dust and ice of the nebula are not hazards for me. Not only will I cross the blackness in a matter of decades. I will come out the other side enriched My shields can gather whatever raw material serves me. My lasers will obliterate whatever cold objects lie in my path. And if need be, I can ignite my glorious engines, changing my trajectory with power enough to move entire worlds.

  Quietly, I ask the nebula for help in making my passage.

  Less quietly I imply that I need little help. My requests are out of politeness and according to the standard laws of the galaxy. I am a citizen of something infinitely larger than any little cloud of gas and ash. I don’t say it in words, in images or mathematics, but brazen implications swim beneath some of my communications.

  To the blackness, I chatter.

  I brag.

  I pretend a dialogue, answering all the likely questions from voices that I haven’t quite heard yet.

  And then after many years of fruitless noise, I fall silent. Sometimes there is no better way to speak. Every one of my channels collapses to an empty hum, and I keep falling on and on toward what has been dubbed the Inkwell.